MGB101 : Business Entrepreneurship : Exploitation of Workers

Companies are out to earn a profit in many different ways. One example of the common way that the company uses is the exploitation of workers to earn more profit through this has adverse effects. Some of the negative effects of exploitation of labor are based on the fact this can harm profit, profit is not actually a way to measure the success of company and profit is viewed as oppressive.

Exploitation of workers and effects on profit

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Exploitation of workers come with the disadvantage of harming or reducing profit and this is dangerous for business. Overexploitation of worker is normally characterized by low morale of workers that result in poor performance of such workers and this leads to a reduction of profit (Yoshihara 2016). Exploitation of worker in addition normally ruins motivation of workers as most of the employees are reportedly feel tired and are unable to continue working to generate profit for the company. Exploitation of workers is also a source of destruction of morale and incentives that is witnessed among workers within major companies (Nick 2014). It important to note that when employees are exploited they tend to offer poor quality service and a poor result and this is harmful to the company.

Argument

On the other hand, exploitation of workers is also attributed to high profit gained by business. Employees are also afraid of losing their job and this result in them continuing to offer service to the company (Reiff 2013). The company that is also exploiting worker pay less salary and accumulates reasonable profit.

Rebuttal

Exploitation of workers should not happen since the company needs to understand the importance of people as this may make those workers exploited to leave the company for another company with better working conditions (Fleurbaey 2014).

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Overemphasis of profit ruin the reputation of the company as living conditions of workers is considered first by ethical principles. Workers are more important than the profit and therefore need to be treated with high dignity, not at the expense of profit. Money or profit cannot be compared to the lives of employees working to generate those profits. Ethical principles dictate that money that is gained through exploitation of labor cannot be compared to workers since workers are important and exploiting them is not healthy for the company (Barnes 2013; Vrousalis 2013). As workers suffer for profit, the company is most likely to have substandard services due to poor working conditions workers are subjected to. 

Argument

On the other hand, valuing profit more than workers is connected to putting more emphasis on customers as this leads to high profit. Customer oriented focus ensures that worker delivers to their fullness and this is translated to high profit gained by companies (Schauerte 2006; Veneziani 2017). This, in turn, increases profit that is gained by the company hence considered the as high performance of the company in the market.

Rebuttal

Despite the connection between profit and labor, low profit that is earned by the firm can lead to unemployment of workers. Failure to gain profit normally leads to workers being held accountable for failure (Malmqvist 2016).

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Profit is not the indicator of the success of a company and therefore cannot be used as a means of exploitation to workers. Profit is not well derived within the business can show the extent to which workers are exploited since the profit can be a surplus of the money that is obtained from the exploitation of workers. It is important to note that exploitation also means giving low pay to workers and this result in increase accumulated money (Claudia 2007; Powell & Zwolinski 2012).

Argument

On the other hand, workers are continuously exploited for gaining more profit by the rich individual according to the capital arguments. It is commonly believed that after giving workers a minimum wage that is enough to survive they will continuously work to bring more profit to the company (Costa 2015). Despite the enlisted advantages of labor exploitation, exploitation of labor for profits results in a miserable life that is characterized by the poor living condition and lack of food for their families.

Rebuttal

Despite the view of the importance of profit for an organization, the overall result of labor exploitation is bad company reputation that also has an adverse effect on the profit. Companies with poor and exploitative conditions of work normally result in low profits since many different customers fear exploitation (Lapon 2011).

Stance

Based on the analysis of the exploitation of labor by companies to increase the profit a stance is therefore drawn. I do not agree with exploitation of the labour since the negative effect of this on profitability of the company is great as compared to positives. Firstly, based on the above analysis, exploitation of the workers harm the profit as employees tends to lose morale and hence offer poor quality of service. Secondly, employees are more important than profit and the company cannot be on the other way round. The lives of employees should come first before profits since these workers also have families to take care and need reasonable wages. Thirdly, over emphasis of the profitability at the expense of employees ruin the reputation of the company leading to reduction of the number of customers leading to low profitability. Profit oriented company also oppress workers as it reduce salaries to increase the profit of the company.    

Conclusion

In conclusion, companies earn a profit in different ways and this includes exploitation of labor to earn more profit. Exploitation of labor is characterized by both negative and positive effects on the profit of a company. Exploitation of labor can actually harm the profit leading to low profit as workers are not motivated and have low morale. In addition, the exploitation of labor is also viewed as a means of oppression and not profit. The capitalism belief rests on the oppression of labor to earn more profit believed to be perpetuated by rich people. In contrast to the capitalism beliefs, profit is not the measure of the success of a company as some rich people normally believe. Moreover, ethical standard emphasis on the importance of workers within an organization as compared to the profit that is also important. This view place human workers above profit through many companies thinks that profit is more important as it justifies the performance of the company and subsequent survival of the company.

References

Barnes, M., (2013) Exploitation as a Path to Development: Sweatshop Labour, Micro-Unfairness, and the Non-Worseness Claim, Ethics and Economics, vol.10, no.1, pp 26–43.

Claudia H. (2007) Labour Market and Exploitation of Labour in Joan Robinson's 'The Economics of Imperfect Competition', Revista de Economia Contemporânea, Vol. 3, p. 13-41, Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=962588 [accessed on September 30, 2018]

Costa D. (2015) The True Cost of Low Prices is Exploited, Workers. Working Economics Blog, Available at https://www.epi.org/blog/true-cost-of-low-prices-is-exploited-workers/ [accessed on September 30, 2018]

Fleurbaey, M., (2014) The Facets of Exploitation. Journal of Theoretical Politics vol.26, pp 653-676.

Lapon, G. (2011) What Do We Mean By Exploitation? International Socialist Organization. Available at https://socialistworker.org/2011/09/28/what-do-we-mean-exploitation [accessed on September 30, 2018]

Malmqvist, E., (2016) Better to Exploit than to Neglect? International Clinical Research and the Non-Worseness Claim, Journal of Applied Philosophy, forthcoming, vol.34, no.4, pp 474-488.

Nick, J. (November 16, 2014) Marx’s labor theory of value and exploitation under capitalism. The Political Economy of Development: Economic progress, social justice, individual liberty. Available at https://peofdev.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/marxs-labour-theory-of-value-and-exploitation-under-capitalism/ [accessed on September 30, 2018]

Powell, B. & Zwolinski, M. (2012) The Ethical and Economic Case Against Sweatshop Labor: A Critical Assessment, Journal of Business Ethics, 107: 449–472.

Reiff, M.R., (2013) Exploitation and Economic Justice in the Liberal Capitalist State. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Schauerte M. (2006) Exploitation of Labor, Introduction to Capital, available at https://www.marxists.org/subject/japan/sakisaka/exploitation.htm [accessed on September 30, 2018 ]

Veneziani R. (2017) The Theory of Exploitation as the Unequal Exchange of Labour. Economics Department Working Paper Series.  Economics Department Working Paper Series. 220. 
available at https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/220 [accessed on October 1, 2018]

Vrousalis, N., (2013) Exploitation, Vulnerability, and Social Domination”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol.41, no.2, pp 131–157.

Yoshihara, N., (2016) A Progress Report on Marxian Economic Theory: On the Controversies in Exploitation Theory since Okishio (1963). Journal of Economic Surveys, forthcoming. Vol.31, pp. 632-659