In 1946, Hal Moore was stationed in Japan as part of the occupation force following the end of WWII. His unit was undermanned as well as a large portion of the men’s drafted service commitment was coming to an end. Thus, the soldiers discipline began to waiver, giving into excessive drinking etc.
They made them work long nonsensical hours the average human being can withstand, paid them wages lower than the minimum wage at McDonald's, and abused their employees. For example, take JP Morgan who increased working hours and workplace fatalities keeping his wage at an all time low (history.co.uk). Morgan made his employees work so much that they started demanding laws to limit the workday to eight hours. Morgan’s wage was so low that the average worker barely earned a dollar a day. J.P. Morgan did not treat workers well and was the main cause of falling wages and not caring for the health and safety of the workforces of his companies, especially steelworkers and miners, who died while working at his facilities ( history.co.uk, P.1)
¬¬-Corporate ethics comes at a price- one that either businesses have to absorb or consumers have to pay for. Too often consumers complain about big business, but then shop at Walmart because the small, family owned stores are more expensive. However, people still drink it. Not only do businesses need to be held responsible, consumers do as well. If there was not a demand, Coke would discontinue the supply.
The most powerful element in society is wealth, it has the power to corrupt the human mind and body. Andrew Carnegie the president of a $480 billion steel company believed it is “the duty of the man of wealth” to control all the money that comes to him, and “becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren… Doing for them better they would or could do for themselves” (Doc C). Clearly the immense amount of wealth he possessed has corrupted his mind to make such hostile judgment upon the poor. The mere dream of a laborer is to become successful in their jobs in order to earn the sufficient amount of money to buy a decent home, and raise a healthy family.
This status adds points to his credibility. In his works Moore mentioned many pressing problems like media’s work, situation in the housing sector or medical insurance. He acts like he tries to demonstrate the real situation in the mentioned sphere. It is obvious that Moore’s documentaries often create depressive impression. People can say he does it deliberately by choosing only negative examples, like the situation with Kaiser Permanente that did not help Dawnelle Keyes’s small daughter in time because she was not delivered to the right hospital at first (Sicko 01:10).
It is evident that political leaders have become blinded by power and money, that they have become ignorant towards important matters such as the education system. The country needs to shift its focus onto things that actually matter, not things that allow an illiterate person to lead a successful life in this country, such as technology. Moore has done an excellent job of expressing deep concern for the upcoming generations. American society needs to reevaluate its priorities and reset its standards in order to excel as a country.
Carnegie stated that it is “much better this great irregularity than universal squalor” (Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth”). I believe that Carnegie contradicts himself with this statement, and I feel that it could be considered to create an ethical situation. Through his works he emphasizes the importance of sharing wealth for the greater good of society and to bridge the gap between the classes, but yet this statement seems to say that only a few are chosen to be wealthy while the rest of society is not. It in some ways undercuts the capabilities of the lower class. The giants of industrialism made their fortunes because of the labor of those worked for them.
One thing that may affect the decisions people make are social ranks. People may agree with his quote because they might have come from a small town or they did not have a lot of money. But those type of people usually have more imagination and a better view of how the world could be. On the article: How money changes the way we think and behave, in the video from 1:30 to 1:59 minutes the lady explains that although you may have a lot of money, it is still nowhere near having a good environment for your kids to live in or having family and friends near. If a child lived in an apartment, that child could be the next president because of the imagination that they might have.
In fact, “by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain” (CR 88) wanting to maximize his profit while minimizing his costs. So, instead of increasing the wages of their workers, they would instead keep their wages low and keep the money they earned. The owner wants an “industry that produces the greatest value” (CR 88) which would lead one to infer that they just should not give the workers a salary. However, although the company owners “neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it” (CR 88) because of the need to raise the wages of workers. The industry owners end up being “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention” (CR 88) which pushes the owners to increase the wages of factory workers to allow them to be able to purchase more products, thus further supporting industries.
This quote highlights how easily personal gain can be prioritized over principles
Throughout history, rules and/ or the church commissioned work to control the masses, giving them visual rules and regulations on how they should live to make it to heaven. I feel Moore is taking somewhat of an opposite approach where he is displaying his disgust to those who are trying to manipulate and control society. Moore is bringing attention to the fact that Texas, one of the biggest history book suppliers for public education, has been altering our history for years. History as we’ve been taught isn’t exactly what happened, instead it is what the authors and publishers want history to be. In an education foundation course I took, we studied this extensively; the history we know is not the history of the United States, instead it is the history per Texas.
Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich goes in depth of workers that have minimum wage jobs and are trying to survive in the U.S economy. Ehrenreich’s goes incognito trying to work in low-end jobs. Experiencing the hardships that many Americans face, Ehrenreich learns that money is not equal to the work and grief put in. Everywhere in the novel, Ehrenreich expresses that owners of corporations keep the workers down. As quoted, “…everyone knows they have crossed over to the other side, which is, crudely put, corporate as opposed to human" (Ehrenreich, 22).
This is at any cost no matter what illegal, monstrous behaviors they engage in while at work, or how charming they are in their everyday lives outside of work they as humans have morals which they should carry with them to their jobs creating a corporation based on excellent morals verses one that has all the defining characteristics of a psychopath. The government is also responsible for the actions of psychopathic corporation because they do not mandate punishments severe enough causing the corporations to follow the rules and regulations allowing for little to no punishment for cases of corporate
This unjust act could be solved by unionizing together in order to help transform Wal-Mart into a better
What is Foxconn’s unethical issue? In mid 2010, Foxconn Technology Group (Foxconn) was facing a crisis of having its workers held protests and riots against the company in Shenzhen, China. Being the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer (Pun, 2010), the company exploited its migrant workers by providing them with exceptionally low pay and allowing unacceptable number of overtime working hours in the manufacturing site. Such method of raising workers’ efficiency is unethical in the eyes of many.
