Category: business ethics

Internet Freedom Slipping

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Internet Censorship Scenario in Europe
Internet Censorship Scenario in Europe (Photo credit: Analectic.org)

This is very bad news indeed.

Much of the media in the United States is not to be trusted or not doing their job. And because of this the Internet while infested with danger is the new media that carries the weight of intellectual and significant thought and story telling.

The government and corporate power do not like a free internet. It is very sad indeed to see the United States with its claims of being a great free society establishing a truly incredible surveillance operation covering every aspect of the internet.

They have usurped Americans’ privacy with no penalty and little oversight.

But America is a great nation and we can hope the wheel turns round and that there will be change.

But the current crisis is important to business ethics for without an open internet, one avenue of corporate accountability is foreclosed. There are not enough counterweights to corporate wrong doing. Losing this one could be devastating.

James Pilant

Internet freedom in ‘global decline,’ report finds | Al Jazeera America

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/3/report-shows-declineininternetfreedomin35countries.html

Internet freedom in countries around the world has declined sharply in the past year despite a pushback from activists that successfully blocked some governments’ repressive laws, according to a new report.

The study, by advocacy group Freedom House, looked at online trends in 60 countries, evaluating each nation them based on obstacles to access, limits to content and violations of user rights. It found that in 35 of the countries monitored, governments had expanded their legal and technical surveillance powers in regards to citizen’s online activities.

“Broad surveillance, new laws controlling web content and growing arrests of social media users drove a worldwide decline in Internet freedom in the past year,” the authors of the report concluded.

Of the countries included in the research, Iceland came top in terms of giving its citizens the highest level of freedom. China, Cuba and Iran were listed as the most restrictive for a second consecutive year. The report noted that declines in online freedom in three democracies – Brazil, India and the United States – were “especially troubling”.

Revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have ignited a global debate about the U.S. government’s domestic surveillance activities, and the report says the changes in U.S. online …

(Please go to the site and read the whole article.)

via Internet freedom in ‘global decline,’ report finds | Al Jazeera America.

From around the web.

From the web site,

http://paolatubaro.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/internet-freedom-and-censorship/

I participated today in a panel discussion at Voice of Russia London, on freedom of Web speech – the future of the Internet, possible restraints, what is and isn’t currently allowed. My angle was that on the unintended effects of censorship, based on research I have done in the last few years.

You may remember our ICCU (Internet Censorship and Civil Unrest) study, which I started with Antonio A. Casilli
during the summer 2011 English riots. We looked at the potential
effects on civil violence of restrictions to access to the Internet
–considered, though eventually not implemented, by the government.
Leaving aside issues of technical feasibility and legal and ethical
acceptability, would net censorship work? Would it stop the violence?

We show
that it wouldn’t. Its effect would be to interrupt coordination of both
unlawful agitation and community pacification efforts, if not even
policing: so neither “positive” nor “negative” social influences, so to
speak, would display their effects. Censorship doesn’t reduce the level of violence, but changes its pattern.
Specifically, it generates a steadily high level of violence, while its
absence produces only “picks” of violence, with periods of social peace
between them.

We conclude that Internet censorship is
ineffective and inefficient: its social cost (in terms of giving up
freedom of speech) is too high for such meagre results.

American Media Fail to Cover Poverty

On By southwerkIn business ethics
English: This is a figure illustrating the dif...
English: This is a figure illustrating the different rates of poverty by sex for Americans over 65 in 2006. It is based on Statistical Abstract data. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The American Media’s failure to cover poverty as a topic is morally wrong and a failure of business ethics. First, they have an obligation to cover important subjects as part of their duty as a functioning press. They are one of the balancing mechanisms that make democracy work. Second, they are ill-serving their largest stake holders, the consumers of news by providing them with a distorted view of reality. “If it bleeds it leads,” isn’t journalism, it’s entertainment and very poor entertainment. Thirdly, they have a duty to themselves to act responsibly as human beings and to leave a legacy for others.

 

Failure to deal intelligently and with an appropriate level of coverage of controversial topics is a business ethics failure.

 

James Pilant

 

About 15% of Americans live in poverty, so why is no one talking about it? | Daniel A Medina | Comment is free | theguardian.com

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/05/american-media-ignores-poverty-issues

 

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that out of 52 mainstream media outlets analysed, coverage of poverty amounted to less than 1% of available news space from 2007 to 2012. It’s even more astonishing considering that period covered a historic recession. One of the report’s conclusions was that media organizations chose not to cover poverty because it was potentially uncomfortable to advertisers seeking to reach a wealthy consumer audience. As Barbara Ehrenreich, who contributes articles on social issues for Time Magazine, put it:They don’t want really depressing articles about misery and hardship near their ads.Poverty coverage is seen as non-lucrative, time-consuming and involves high levels of commitment that editors are unwilling to give their reporters in this age of newsroom budget tightening. The greatest irony, however, is that poverty, as Tampa Bay Times media critic, Eric Deggans, told The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard earlier this year “is in some ways the ultimate accountability story – because, often, poverty happens by design”.

 

(Please visit the link and read the whole article.)

 

via About 15% of Americans live in poverty, so why is no one talking about it? | Daniel A Medina | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

From around the web.

From the web site, Poverty and Policy.

http://povertyandpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/moving-beyond-trayvon-martin-to-issues-of-economic-injustice/

Dr. Martin Luther King opened his famous March on Washington speech by proclaiming that “the Negro is still not free…. [He] lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast sea of material prosperity.”

 

This is still true 50 years later for 28% of blacks, Gutting says, citing last year’s official poverty figure. And the root cause is the way our free enterprise system works.

 

It’s geared primarily toward enabling individuals to amass personal wealth. And them’s what has gets, at the expense of them’s what don’t.

 

The end result is “a socioeconomic underclass deprived of the basic goods necessary for a fulfilling human life: adequate food, housing, health care and education, as well as meaningful and secure employment.”

 

Gutting asserts that “people should be free to pursue their happiness in the competitive market” — an odd conflation of happiness and riches.

 

But, he continues, “it makes no sense to require people to compete in the market for basic goods” because if they don’t have them, they’ve “little chance of gaining them in competition” with those that do.

 

We’ve got scads of evidence for this. For example, we’ve got research showing that more than 40% of children raised in the bottom fifth of the income scale stay there as adults — and more than half if they’re black.

 

And other studies showing that children of wealthy parents start kindergarten ahead of the pack — and stay there, while a very large number of poor children start with disadvantages that cause them to fall further and further behind.

 

And data showing that even the poor kids who make it through high school are far less likely to go on to college — and less likely to graduate if they do. Costs and other financial pressures are, for blacks, the single most important reason, according to yet other research. And probably not for them only.

From the web site,

Adenike Adebayo

Issues of great importance to me as an Economist.

http://nikeadebayo.wordpress.com/poverty-income-inequality-student-achievement/

FINDINGS

 

Income Inequality

 

Pearson’s correlation coefficient (Table 1) for income inequality and TIMSS math test score shows a negative relationship -.655 at a significance level of .002 (p<. 01) where math test score decreases with higher income inequality (or lower income equality). The relationship between income inequality and science is also negative -.631 at a significance level of .004 (p<. 05) where science test score decreases with increased inequality of income (or with decreased equality of income). Income inequality has very little relationship with government spending on primary and secondary education. Child poverty rates are significantly and positively correlated to income inequality at .787, .792 and .742 with significance levels of .000, .000 and .001.

From the web site, Health Voices.

http://povertybadforhealth.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/income-inequality-no-big-deal-according-to-economists/

In North America, the Occupy movement cast the spotlight on an issue that has been the focus of grave concern around the world – income inequality. So the media flurry that came with the release of Statistics Canada’s latest report on the Income of Canadians (September 11, 2013) was no surprise. CBC’s Kelowna-based Daybreak South (September 12, 2013) and the CBC national show, The 180 (September 13, 2013), are two examples that featured leading economists, both of whom were completely uninformed of the health, social and even the economic costs of income inequality.

 

The numbers simply confirm what we all know – the rich are getting richer, leaving the rest of us behind. At an average of $381,000 each, the richest 1% of Canadians earn more than ten times the average Canadian income. More than the numbers, though, it is the response from leading economists that is troubling for the future of our country.

 

Is Grand Theft Auto Unethical?

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Grand Theft Auto (film)
Grand Theft Auto (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course it is.

You steal cars and commit crimes. It’s a shrine to mindless violence and slaughter. People, even children, should know better. It’s not hard to pick up the meaning in games and decide whether or not you should go along. I used to play the original Fallout game. One of the add-ons provided me with an adventure in which I could end the scenario successfully by doing one of two horrendously unethical things. Those two were my only choices. For you aficionados, it was kidnap the child or join the evil guy. I refused to make that choice. I started a new game and never played that part of it again.

I currently play Fallout New Vegas. I teach ethics. I play as a hero. Nothing else is possible. You fight for the right and if the cause is just, you may have to die for it. There are moral ambiguities but I enjoy them because in this arena I can experiment and see what the outcomes would be of my actions, something denied me in real life.

I understand the occasional need to experiment with the dark side, but as far as I can tell, Grand Theft Auto is the dark side. I don’t think it is good business ethics to buy or play it.

Moral choices are important even in video games.

James Pilant

“Grand Theft Auto V”: Gaming’s dark misogynist cesspool – Salon.com

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/04/were_all_gamers_now_and_thats_just_fine/

I kind of know what Bissell is talking about. I am familiar with cesspool, reflective of so much of the Internet’s worst misogynist, homophobic and racist tendencies. That “internalized residual shame” is one reason why I personally gave up gaming. Solitary play, hacking and slashing, mowing down opponents in a rage of slaughter, just didn’t seem physically or mentally healthy. So I packed it in. Now I worry about what all the time my son spends gaming might be doing to him. Hell, I worry about what a generation growing up on ubiquitous, amazingly immersive gaming will do to the culture at large. Something, surely? A billion dollars was just spent in three days on a game whose structure encourages random violence and brutality. That can’t be good.And yet, at the same time, I don’t know what Bissell is talking about at all. Video gaming culture should not, cannot, be reduced to young men screaming profanities as they play “Grand Theft Auto V” on their dedicated consoles. Gaming, today, encompasses much, much more. My son and his friends spend hours in the cooperative, creative world-building domain of “Minecraft,” or chuckling their way through humor-drenched indie games like “Don’t Starve” (“An uncompromising wilderness survival game full

via “Grand Theft Auto V”: Gaming’s dark misogynist cesspool – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site,

http://breakfastwithspock.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/after-the-war-i-thought-nothing-of-doing-bad-things-a-grand-theft-auto-iv-retrospective-part-1/

Grand Theft Auto is the ultimate male escapist fantasy. Grounded in a heightened reality of prostitutes, car chases and sweltering machismo, the series gives the player the ability to assert authority and control at the barrel of a gun. With only two weeks left until the release of Grand Theft Auto V, I stepped back into this world by replaying the previous entry, Grand Theft Auto IV and looking at a game which defined a console generation and offers clues to the next step. I’ll be trying to focus on some of the game’s elements and themes in each new post and how each worked together to create one of the most important games of this console generation.

From the web site –

Home to Reflections, Opinions, and Beer Reviews.

http://mthrisho.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/grand-theft-auto-v-innovative-mechanics-bad-writing/

When the game starts and we’re introduced to the characters, everything seems very fluid and interesting. After a brief and intense bank robbery to introduce us to the mechanics both old and new, we launch to Michael in his therapist’s office doing a wonderful Tony Soprano impression. The focus then quickly shifts to Franklin, who is walking by on the street and asks Michael for direction. From here the game’s story begins as we learn Franklin is a repo man for a car dealership, as well as a sometimes gangster. Franklin meets Michael while attempting to repossess his son’s car, and Michael offers to help him find ‘real work.’ We meet Trevor, Michael’s old bank robbing partner, after Franklin and Michael rob a jewelry store. This is where we learn that Michael had faked his death after the opening sequence, and is now in hiding, with Trevor setting out to find him while working on his own ‘business enterprise.’

From there the game expands into more heists, some government intrigue, and figuring out exactly what happened years ago between Trevor and Michael. While all of this is interesting, in a sense of the word, it never fully engages us in a solid narrative. In fact, there’s still plenty of ‘story missions’ after the main tension between Trevor and Michael comes to a head. Sadly though, a solid resolution never really comes about. Until the last few minutes of the game, Trevor still pretty much hates Michael and with very good reason.

From the web site, The Grand Theft Auto Blog.

http://thegrandtheftautoblog.wordpress.com/

The series is set in fictional locales heavily modelled on American cities, while an expansion for the original was based in London. Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities, all consisting of action-adventure, driving, occasional role-playing, stealth, and racingelements. The subject of the games is usually a comedic satire of American culture, but the series has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. The series focuses around many different protagonists who attempt to rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game. The antagonists are commonly characters who have betrayed the protagonist or his organisation, or characters who have the most impact impeding the protagonist’s progress.

Pope Francis Calls for Church to Humbly Serve the Poor

On By southwerkIn business ethics3 Comments

 

I’m not a Catholic but this is impressive oratory, and I find the message compelling.

James Pilant

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/pope-francis-assisi-church-worldliness

The Roman Catholic church, from the lowliest priest to the pontiff himself, must strip itself of all vanity, arrogance and pride and humbly serve the poorest members of society, Pope Francis has said.The pope’s appeal, made in the central Italian town of Assisi where his namesake Saint Francis lived in the 12th century, comes amid a drive by Francis to turn around a church plagued by financial and sexual abuse scandals.Saint Francis is revered by Catholics and many other Christians for his simple values, poverty and love of nature, qualities the Argentinian-born Francis has made the keynote of his papacy since his election in March.”This is a good occasion to invite the church to strip itself of worldliness,” he said in a room that marks the spot where Saint Francis stripped naked as a young man, renounced his wealthy family and set out to serve the poor.”There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride,” said Francis in the richly frescoed room of the residence of the archbishop of Assisi.As he has often done, Francis spoke impromptu after putting aside prepared versions of two speeches, clearly moved by the sick and the poor people present in the room.

via Pope Francis marks Assisi visit with call for church to shun worldliness | World news | theguardian.com.

A Good Business Ethics Site

On By southwerkIn business ethics
English: Goldman Sachs "GS Sustainability...
English: Goldman Sachs “GS Sustainability” Report 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

From the web site, Ethical Business Ethics

 

http://ethicalbusinessethics.blogspot.com/2013/09/happy-crash-anniversary-sort-of.html

 

Below these brief remarks are the writings of Rose-Anne Moore in her blog, Ethical Business Ethics. I’ve read some of her writing and I like what I see. Hopefully I can bring you more of her views on the world of business and Ethics.

 

James Pilant

 

It’s been five years since the financial markets nearly melted down, and threatened to take the whole US economy down with it. Feel like celebrating the anniversary?

 

I don’t, either.

 

The recovery has been unexciting, to say the least, and none of the big players have gone to jail. The best the Justice Department seems to be able to do is go after little fish. (I’m talkin’ ’bout you, Fabulous Fab!)

 

In fact, every since Fabrice Tourre, formerly of Goldman Sachs, was found liable for fraud early last month (click here for an example of the numerous news accounts), I’ve been thinking about the ones that got away. (I’m thinkin’ ’bout you, Jamie Dimon!)

 

What’s changed since 2008? What did we learn from the fall of Lehman Brothers? Not much. In Robert Reich’s words for Salon, the biggest banks are still “too big to fail, too big to jail, too big to curtail”. (click here for full essay)

 

Good way to start your Monday, right?

 

via Ethical Business Ethics.

 

Related articles

 

 

Banks and Burglary

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Bank Contractors Have Broken Into Hundreds Of Private Homes Since 2008

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/10/03/2729021/banks-break-ins-homeowners-contractors/

Contractors hired by giant financial companies to manage abandoned and defaulted homes have broken into hundreds of the wrong private homes due to incorrectly identifying addresses and other basic errors, the Huffington Post reports.

When a bank or other financial company sees that a mortgage it owns has gone into default, it begins checking to see if the residents have abandoned the property. If they have, it takes responsibility for the upkeep of the property in order to protect its investment and the property values of surrounding homes. That work is often done on a contract basis by companies like Safeguard Properties, which has been sued at least 135 times over wrongful break-ins conducted in pursuit of property management contracts with banks, according to reporter Ben Hallman’s review of court filings around the country. In total, more than 250 lawsuits have been filed in 31 different states over the past five years.

via Bank Contractors Have Broken Into Hundreds Of Private Homes Since 2008.

The corporate use of contractors to escape regulations, push down wages and simply provide distance between a company and its unsavory practices continues. Here we have a particularly egregious example. Homes are being broken into without legal right, sometimes looted, sometimes vandalized. It’s enough to make you wonder if the rule of law only applies to individuals and not banking institutions and their sub-contractors.

James Pilant

David Yamada Explains Workplace Bullying

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Not Teaching Anymore?

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Here’s a post from an adjunct professor who quit. Her story isn’t unique. It’s becoming increasingly common.

James Pilant

From the web site, Bryn Greenwood

http://bryngreenwood.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/why-i-dont-teach-anymore/

Unfortunately, I don’t teach anymore. I made the decision to become a full-time secretary primarily because of an environment like the one described in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which details the downward spiral of Margaret Mary Vojtko, a long-time adjunct professor. Her poverty eventually led to her death, so I feel lucky that mine merely led to a secretarial job.

Universities increasingly rely on underpaid adjunct faculty to carry the burden of what are dismissed as “entry level” courses. It seems to escape university administrators and many tenured faculty members that those entry level courses matter the most. Those are the classes where freshmen get a firm footing for the courses they will take in the next three years. Underpaying the people who teach first-year college students seems equivalent to systematically paying first grade teachers less than sixth grade teachers. After all, teaching kids to read, that’s just entry level work. Easy.

Yet those same tenured faculty lament how many students arrive in their upper level courses without the most basic research skills. Why? Because the people tasked with teaching them basic skills – the underpaid adjunct faculty – do not have the time, energy, or institutional support to become truly great teachers. Some of them are teaching four courses per regular semester and two courses per summer semester (compared to the average tenured faculty load of two/two/zero for an academic year.) At the typical pay of $3,000-$3,500 per course, an adjunct is lucky to make $30,000 a year, teaching as many as ten courses per year.

Please go to her web site and read the entire post. JP

From Online Ph.D Programs
From Online Ph.D Programs

Should we get rid of corporation tax (part 2)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I would have preferred there be some reference to business ethics in the article because taxing corporations has moral implications. Nevertheless, my good readers are certainly capable of reading between the lines and getting the implications here. James Pilant

Robert de Vries's avatarInequalities

In the last post I talked about why so many people endorse the idea of completely scrapping corporation tax.  To briefly reiterate the main arguments:

  1. We don’t know who mostly bears the costs of corporation tax. So if what we really want to do is tax the rich beneficiaries of corporate profits, then we’d be better off raising capital gains and dividend taxes (or even the personal income tax at the high end).
  2. Corporation tax doesn’t work very well to discourage negative externalities like carbon emissions – a specific carbon tax would do this more effectively.

As I said last time, it seems to be economic gospel, even on the left, that the corporation tax is a ‘bad’ tax.

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‘Revenge Porn Bill Signed in California: Another Sign of Declining Civility in Society, The Ethics Sage

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments
The Ethics Sage
The Ethics Sage

(This post is written by the Ethics Sage, Steven Mintz, and I am proud to have the opportunity to post his work on my blog. James Pilant)

Here is a link to his full web site – I recommend you add it to your list of favorite sites.

‘Revenge Porn Bill Signed in California: Another Sign of Declining Civility in Society
Are ‘Revenge Porn’ Postings Protected Free Speech?
On October 1, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that would make it illegal for people to humiliate ex-lovers by posting indecent photos or videos online. California is the second U.S. state to criminalize the act of revenge porn, though as a misdemeanor. New Jersey considers it a felony.
Under the new California law targeting “revenge porn,” distributing sexual images “with the intent to cause serious emotional distress” would carry a fine of as much as $1,000 and as long as six months in jail — even if the pictures were originally taken with consent. The law bans only images taken by the person posting them, meaning that self-photos aren’t protected. That’s good news for Anthony Weiner, I guess.
The posting of ‘revenge porn’ photos by a disgruntled ex of a past partner illustrates a new low in civility in our country. It seems as though all too many have lost their sense of right and wrong — they act only in their own selfish interests. And, all too many have lost the ability to reason ethically, assuming they ever possessed that skill.
Whether it’s random and senseless violence against another, road rage, cyber-bullying, or other offensive acts that are occurring with increased frequency in our society, the U.S., as a country, has lost its moral compass.
Whether it’s gratuitous violence, sexually-charged images, hateful speech, and downright rudeness, the U.S. has morphed into a narcissistic country that values self-indulgence above common sense and common decency.
Some will say the generalized examples I cite are the exception to civil behavior and not the rule. I say it is becoming the norm with increasing frequency and the fact that we tolerate it as a society reflects our willingness to go along with declining ethics rather than fight the good fight. The fact that Hollywood and the social media continue to spark the flames of hedonistic behavior simply means that these institutions believe they are giving us, or being used, in ways that we want.
What about the First Amendment issues? The First Amendment guarantees you the right to post naked pictures of your exes on the Internet.
Here’s exactly what the First Amendment of the Constitution says:
The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Despite this guarantee, courts have established exceptions to free speech, notably defamation and child pornography. Revenge porn could be held up as another exception, since it obviously wasn’t considered by the framers of our Constitution (even if courts have ruled that some “speech” such as Facebook ‘Likes’ is protected by the Constitution.)
Victims of vindictive pornography distribution, aka revenge porn, are often women who originally shared naked pictures of themselves with their boyfriends. The distribution of the photos online can be thoroughly humiliating for the woman in those pictures.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right to some pretty offensive behavior including, in March 2011, that that noxious, highly offensive protests conducted outside solemn military funerals are protected by the First Amendment when the protests take place in public and address matters of public concern. In that decision, America’s highest court ruled the Westboro Baptist Church has a Constitutional right to hold hateful protests outside military funerals.
In order to withstand Constitutional challenge, the ‘revenge porn’ law in California was narrowly construed to require the person who posted revenge porn to do so with the intent to “cause serious emotional distress.” The final law also says the other person had to actually experience emotional distress. Well that’s great news. More money for the lawyers to hash out in court exactly what these terms mean.
The bottom line is ethical behavior cannot be legislated. Our desire to act ethically comes from within and not because of an externally exposed measure of acceptable behavior. Each individual must monitor his or her behavior and always strive to act in accordance with societal norms.
No one is perfect. However, the ethical person constantly questions his or her own behavior and evaluates against the norms including honesty, integrity, fairness, respect, and responsibility.
As for our First Amendment right, there is a difference between what we have a right to do and what the right thing to do is.
Blog posted by Steven Mintz, aka Ethics Sage, on October 3, 2013