Responsibility

Mutual Benefit

Background

Below is a common business story:

1. A person starts a business, becoming a business owner
2. The owner hires multiple employees
3. The owner settles upon a bad business model that depends on some combination of:
   1. Swindling customers
   2. Violating laws
   3. Poor quality of life for employees
4. When the business model is challenged, the owner defends the model by claiming:
   1. There is no other alternative for the business to survive
   2. Multiple people depend on the business for their own survival

• Those arguments are fallacies
• Bad business models are sometimes rationalized by the following arguments
  • That the bad business model is the only way the company can survive
  • That employees are depending on the success of
• When two entities engage in business, they should agree upon a mutually beneficial arrangement
• A producer should provide goods and/or services that are mutually benefial to both the producer and the consumer
• A tempting business model is to provide inferior goods and/or services at high prices
• Such a business model skirts close to swindling and sometimes becomes outright swindling
• Once a business reaches such a position, the swindling is justified by arguments such as:
  • "It's the only way we can survive"
  • "There are employees depending on us"