Final Study Guide: The Buddhist Economics: y Right livelihood is one of the requirements of the Buddha s Noble Eightfold

path. So it is clear that there must be such a thing as Buddhist economics. y The new Burma sees not conflict between religious values and economic progress. y Spiritual health and material well being are not enemies they are allies y The threefold point of view are; To give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence y Two types of mechanisms that must be clearly distinguished: 1. One that enhances a man s skill and power 2. One that turns the work of man over to a mechanical slave leaving a man in a position to serve the slave y Buddhist are interested in liberation y It is rational to consume local resources for local needs y They distinguish between renewable and nonrenewable materials nonrenewable must be used only if they are indispensable Modern Economists: y They consider labour or work as little more than a necessary eveil y From the point of view of the employer labour is only an item of cost y From the point of view of the man it is a disutility to work is to make a sacrifice of one s leisure and confort y Employee having income without working!!!!! y Employer having output without employees!!! y They measure standards of living by the amount of annual consumption y Do not distinguish renewable and nonrenewable material. Business Responsibilities in Environmental Issues: y Pollution: The undesirable and unintended contamination of the environment by the manufacture or use of commodities ( preventing it as much as possible should be a responsibility) y Resource Depletion: The consumption of finite or scarce resources ( To protect the resources as much as possible to y Global Warming: The increase in temperatures around the globe due to rising levels of greenhouse gases y GreenHouse gases: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons gases that absorb and hold heat from the sun. y Acid Rain: it occurs when sulfur exides and nitrogen oxides are combined with water vapor in clouds to form nitric acid and sulfuric acid. These acids are then carried down in rainfall. Rights, Utility, and Justice with respect to the environment and resources:

Rights: Every individual has the right to own a livable environment as the society is permitting him to live a human life and to incorporate to the society. Justice: The distributive justice is somewhat related to the justice that corporations owe to the environment. However, in some cases it is not equal for instance if a corporation pollutes, it s stockholders benefit because their firm does not have to absorb the external costs of pollution. Environmental Injustice: The bearing of external costs of pollution largely by those who do not enjoy a net benefit from the activity that produces the pollution. Ecofeminism: It is the belief that the root of our ecological crisis lies in a pattern of domination of nature that is tightly linked to the social practices and institutions through which women have been subordinated to men. 5: Responsibilities of consumers and producers in the marketplace, contract, due care, and social costs views: Market approach to consumer protection: Consumers safety is seen as a good that is most efficiently provided through the mechanism of the free market whereby sellers must respond to consumer s demands. y Contract view of the business firms duties to its customers: The view that the relationship between a business firm and its customers is essentially a contractual relationship, and the firms moral duties to the customers are those created by this contractual relationship. y The due care Theory: ( The manufacturers duties to consumers): It is based on the idea that consumers and sellers do not meet as equals and that the consumer s interests are particularly vulnerable to being harmed by the manufacturer who has a knowledge and an expertise that the consumer lacks. y 1The social costs View: ( The manufacturers Duties): The third theory on the duties of the manufacturer would extend the manufacturers duties beyond those imposed by contractual relationships and beyond those imposed by the duty to exercise due care in preventing Injury or harm: This theory holds that a manufacturer should pay the costs of any injuries sustained through any defects in the product, even when the manufacturer exercise all due care in the design. This view seems to be unfair because the critics charge because it violates the basic canons of compensatory justice. Moral Issues in Advertising: Critics claim that it has several adverse effects on society. It degrades people s tastes, it wastes valuable resources, and it creates monopoly power. . Psychological Effects of Advertising: A familiar criticism of advertising is that it debases the tastes of the public by presenting irritating and aesthetical unpleasant displays. y

Evidence of Job Discrimination: ( Its nature) discrimination is natural and corporations are guilty of it in some ways for instance the corporations have many jobs that are design for man and other that are a great fit for women such as receptionists. It is the wrongful act of distinguishing illicitly among people not on the basis of individual merit, but on the basis of prejudice or some other individious or morally reprehensive attitude. Affirmative Action Program: A program designed to ensure the proportion of minorities within an organization matches their proportion in the available workforce. Discrimination and the Law: Civil rights act of 1964, made it illegal to make hiring , firing, or compensation decisions on the basis of color, race, religion, sex, or national origen. Discrimination in the United States: The income gap between whites and minorities has not decreased. y Large income inequalities based on sex exist y Overall, black unemployment is twice as high as white unemployment y Poverty rate of families headed by women is 3 times that of male-headed families Equal Employment opportunity employment: A federal agency that investigates claims of on-the-job sexual harassment and discrimination. Discrimination: Utility, Rights, and Justice: y Utility: Utilitarian arguments of this sort, have encountered two kinds of objections. First if the argument is correct, then jobs should be assigned on the basis of job-related qualifications only so long as such assignments will advance the public welfare. Second, the utilitarian argument must also answer that charge of opponents who opponents might claim, for example that society will produce more efficiently if one sex is socialized. y Rights: Nonutilitarian arguments against racial and sexual discrimination may take the approach that discrimination is wrong because it violates a person s moral rights. Kantian theory, says that human being should be treated as ends and not as means. y Justice: John Rawls: argues that among the principles of justice that the enlightened parties to the original position would choose for themselves is the principle of justice that the enlightened parties to the original positions. y Discriminatory practices in the workplace: y Recruitment practices y Screening practices y Promotion practices y Conditions of Employment y Discharge

Sexual Harassment: Under certain conditions, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature. Affirmative Action: All of the equal opportunity policies discussed are ways of making employment decisions blind with respect to sex and race. These policies are al negative as they aim to prevent any further discrimination. Affirmative Action as compensation: All arguments that defend affirmative action As a form of compensation are based on the concept of compensatory justice. This justice implies that people have the obligation to compensate those who they have intentionally wronged. Affirmative action: ( instrument for achieving Utilitarian and equal justice) : They claim affirmative action reduces need and so increases utility. y Criticized on grounds that costs outweigh benefits and that other ways of reducing need will produce greater utility. Equal Justice Argument for Affirmative action: It claims affirmative action will secure equal opportunity Arguments made Against Equal justice Argument for Affirmative Action: y Affirmative action programs, discriminate against white men y Preferential treatment violates the principle of equality y Affirmative action programs harm women and minorities A comparable worth program: y A program designed to ensure that jobs of equal value to an organization are paid the same salary regardless of whether external labor markets pay the same rates for those jobs. y They equalize pay for jobs requiring equal responsibility and equal skills and of equal value to an organization y Based on the idea that equals should be treated as equals The rational organization as contrasted with the political organization: y Rational model of a business organization: The organization as structure of formal explicitly defined and openly employed relationships designed to achieve some technical or economic goal with maximum efficiency. y Formal Hierarchy of authority: The positions and relationships identified in the organizational chart that represents the various official positions and lines of authority in the organization. y Operating Layer: Those employees and their immediate supervisors who directly produce the goods and services that constitute the essential output of the organization. y Middle managers: Mangers who direct the units below them and are in turn directed by those above them in ascending formal lines of authority. y Top management: the board of directors the chief executive officer, and the CEO staff.

The Political model of the organization: A view of the organization as a system of competing power coalitions and formal and informal lines of influence and communication that radiate from these coalitions.

Employees obligations to the organization: Employees are usually obligated to work toward the goals of the organization. y Conflict of interest: This occur when employees in a certain job have an interest that might motivate them to do that job that might not be in the best interest of the firm. y Objective conflict of interest: conflict of interest that are based on financial relationships y Subjective conflicts of interest: conflicts of interest that are based on emotional ties or on relationships. y Potential conflicts of interest: This occurs when an employee has an interest that could influence the judgments made for the employer if the employee were performing a certain task for the employer but has not yet given a task to perform. y Actual conflict of interest: when an employee has an interest that might influence the judgments she makes for the employer when performig certain task for the employer and has actually been given that task to perform. y Apparent conflict of interest: A situation in which an employee has no actual conflict of interest, but in which other people looking at the situation may come to believe wrongly that there is an actual conflict of interest. Employee Theft and computers: The employee of a firm has a contractual agreement to accept only certain specified benefits in exchange for labor and to use the resources and goods of the firm. In pursuit only of the legitimate aims of the firm. y Computer Theft: These are the ethics of using a computer to entry into a company s data bank. To y Copy company s computer programs y Using a company computer during one s own time Trade secrets: This consists of nonpublic information that concerns a company s own activities, technologies, future plans, polices, or records that if known by competitors will materially affect the company s ability to compete commercially against competitors. Insider Trading: This is the act of buying and selling a company s stock on the basis of inside information about the company. This refers to the inside information stolen to sell it to investors as they may profit from either direction of the company s perspective. Employer obligations: Wages and working conditions: Wages: From the employees point of view, wages are the principal ( perhaps the only) means for satisfying the basic economic needs of the worker and the worker s

y y

family. From the employer s point of view wages are a cost of production that must be kept down. Fair wages are dependent Upon: y Local wages y Firms ability to pay y Burdens of the job y Minimum wage laws y Fair relation to other salaries in the firm y Fair wage negotiations y Local living costs Working conditions: ( health & Safety) y Occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) created by congress in 1970 to assure as far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions. Fair working conditions require: Studying and eliminating job risk y Compensating for risk y Informing workers of known risks y Insuring workers against unknown risks Sweatshop: A workplace that has numerous health and safety hazards and poor working conditions as well as low wages. Job Satisfaction: The restriction of an employee s job tasks ( Horizontal) or the restriction of an employee s job control and decision making power ( vertical) Employee Rights: Observers of corporations have repeatedly pointed out that the power of modern corporate management is much like that of government. The right to privacy: As indicated in chapter 6 the right to privacy can be defined as the right people have to determine what, to whom, and how much information about themselves shall be disclosed to others. The employee s right to privacy has become particularly vulnerable with the development of recent technologies, particularly computer technologies. Freedom of Conscience: In the course of performing a job an employee may discover that the corporation is doing something that the employee believes is injurious to society. Whistleblowing: An attempt by a member of an organization to disclose wrongdoing in or by the organization. Employment at will: The doctrine that, unless employees are protected by an explicit contract ( such as union employees) employers may dismiss their employees at will . For good cause for no cause or even for causes morally wrong, without being thereby guilty of legal wrong.

Due process: The right to a fair process by which decision makers impose sanctions on their subordinates. The Role of Unions: The same rights of free association that justify the formation and existence of corporations also underlie the worker organizations are call unions. y The workers right to organize into a union derives from the right of all workers to high unemployment or in regions where only one or a few firms are located. Not only do workers have the right to form unions but the unions also have the right to strike.