business ethics

The Times ran an article today about how Costco manages to offer fantastically low prices while paying its employees far better wages than Wal-Mart. This part made me snicker:

But not everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

I am reminded of an interview with Noam Chomsky in a recent issue of The Sun, in which Chomsky said something no one never does -- that corporations shouldn't have the right to exist without the continued consent of the populace, and that, more specifically, it is completely insane that the SEC legally prohibits corporations from doing decent things for their own sake; if an action does not have a clear profit motive, even if it is a normal, human thing to do, it is explicitly unlawful for a corporation to do it, because it is the legal duty of a corporation to maximize returns for its shareholders.

The exception to this is, of course, when a company can claim that doing the decent thing is good PR, in which case it is acceptable and even encouraged. But look at how the code of behavior we mandate for a corporation is the mirror image of what we expect of individuals (that you, as an individual, should always do the right thing, regardless of what others think).

Imagine if we raised children to only do the right thing when it makes them look good. Only share toys when adults are watching; otherwise, steal as many toys from other children as possible, especially from the children with leukemia.

Wall Street is protesting health care for Costco employees. Oh no, the sky is falling!