Benevolence

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. Poor quality of life for employees
   3. Violating laws
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

Relationships

• Customers, employees, and the government are all entities that a business relates to
  • In this context, Government is a representative of other citizens, with laws that protect one citizen from another

Mutual Benefit

• When two entities engage in business, they should agree upon a mutually beneficial arrangement

• A business should provide goods and/or services that are mutually beneficial to both itself and its consumer

• A business should employ workers that benefit the business and benefit from the business

• A business should operate in a manner that does not conflict with its surrounding environment and neighbors

• It is not enough for a business to simply try to benefit others, the benefits needs to flow both ways for the business to be healthy

  • For example, if the business charges customers too little, employees may suffer for it
    • Conversely, hiring an ineffective employee can hurt customers

• Benefit should be measured as net profit

  • Sometimes a business rationalized its practices by focusing on individual benefits it provides, when those benefits are nullified by larger costs the business requires other parties to pay

• When a business is not benefiting others, it is hurting others

Deficiency

• A healthy business with good practices does not need to hurt others
• When a business needs to hurt others in order to survive, that business is compensating for its own deficiencies
  • The business is cheating to remain competitive

Resolution

• If a business is significantly hurting others and incapable of becoming mutually beneficial, it is an inferior business and should be dissolved
• The dissolution of a business does not need to be catastrophic—often the elements of a dissolved business are absorbed by other businesses