Over the weekend I had a discussion with friends about the morality of profits. The discussion was lengthy and heated as to what responsibility a corporation has to society to limit its profits, or control prices, in order to benefit society. Personally, I find it odd that anyone feels that making money in a time of national recession is inherently immoral. Specifically, we are talking about oil companies making large profits due to the run up of the price of oil.
Without getting into a deep discussion about how the oil markets work, anyone with even the simplest understanding of how a business works knows that if the price of your raw materials doubles, then the price of the finished product will probably be much higher- as will your profits, as least in net dollars, if not margin. As a result, oil companies are raking in huge profits during the recession. The argument then revolves around the oil companies’ morality of making profits when the economy starts to take a downturn, since the economy runs on oil. As oil prices rise, individual consumers pocketbooks shrink.
The debate about whether oil companies are moral or immoral is one that could go for pages, with the presumption that its immoral to profit to the detriment of the overall economy. But that’s not what I want to talk about- my question to the reader is thus: Why is morality such an issue when discussing politics at all?
It bothers me when I see articles by conservative or right wing authors that pontificate on the role of government and morality, insofar as they argue against making abortion legal, against gay marriage, or other issues of morality; just as much as I despise the left for judging companies as immoral for making profits.
It is not the role of government to decide whose behavior is moral or immoral; only to protect the rights of the people living within its borders and prepare for the common defense. There is nothing in the Constitution about how people should live, nor what is moral or immoral. In fact, the Constitution goes to great pains to protect those who behave in different manners from others, both in religious freedom and the right of free speech. The Constitution establishes open tolerance, not absolutes.
Whether or not a company has a moral responsibility to operate in a certain way is irrelevant. Its sole purpose should be to generate as much profits as possible so that’s investors can get a substantial return on their money. Who wants to invest in a company that says, ‘we are only going to make so much money, then stop’? It should not be concerned about society thinking of it or does not thinking of it. It is an engine to generate wealth for its owners. To argue that a corporation should attempt to act morally would be the same argument to say that a toaster should operate morally.
Instead, Americans need to look at themselves as to whether they should behave morally or immorally, and not expect government to establish those rules for them. The investors and the employees should decide individually what to do with their wealth- not to decide whether the corporation should limit its profits. The argument that an individual should not hoard their wealth is an entirely different matter and one worth discussing- but to say that a corporation should limit wealth is an empty argument.
People that invest in companies and get large returns on their money do things with it. They buy goods, donate to charities and invest in more companies. This is how an economy moves forward. When you limit a corporation’s profits, you are essentially limiting the economy as a whole, and the natural flow of cash through it. This means that by limiting corporate profits, you limit the growth of jobs, growth of tax dollars into government coffers and limit the consumption of goods, which leads to more growth. Where one person loses money because of high pricing, another is making money from those profits, it is a zero-sum game. To limit the ability of a corporation to generate profits, you are limiting the ability of individuals to become richer.
You shoot the economy it its proverbial foot.
To say that a corporation must limit its profits is not one of intellectual thought, but one of jealousy of those making the profits. You are, in effect, arguing that it is wrong for your neighbor to make money, when you are not.
Thus, government should never be the arbiter of what is moral or immoral on how a corporation determines its pricing, or its margins, only the open market. If you decide that the government has the final word on such matters, you are giving the government more power than was spelled out in the Constitution, and more importantly, handing over the reins of power from the masses to those of an elite few. When you increase the confiscatory and regulatory powers of government, you squelch the ability of entrepreneurs to start up competitive companies that, by their very existence, lower prices through a more competitive marketplace.
Morality should be left to the non-secular elements of society, not determined by government. If you want to make an argument against church and state, there is no better one than keeping government from determining what is moral and immoral in society.
As individual Americans, it is our responsibility to do what we can for our fellow man, through acts of charity, kindness and manners. It is not the role of government, however, to set those guidelines for us. If you do so, you are allowing the government to usurp the rights of individual freedom of choice. This is anathema to American thought.
To do so, establishes a church of America, under the banner of social justice. A false and empty God to be sure, and one that is nothing more than a vampire on the process of capitalism and individual freedoms.
