Every citizen has one vote, but…

According to the U.S. Constitution, our government is one that is of, by, and for the people (I may have mixed up the order, but it says the same thing). Sadly, even though each citizen has the same direct voting power, many have much stronger indirect power.
I am a normal citizen. I am not rich, and my only chances of inducing political action are by casting one ballot, by speaking with friends to try to convince them to think like me, and by using various cheap mediums like blogs to send my message out. However, I rarely use politics to try to make an economic profit (pat me on the back), and I certainly don’t try to use politics to make a direct economic profit (give me a cookie).
Currently, I am in business school. If I should be so lucky as to work my way up the ladder of a Fortune 100 company to become an executive, or even the CEO, then I will have the power to use politics to make a direct individual profit. In most companies, the regular employees don’t earn bonuses if the company performs very well, but the guys at the top certainly do. Also, it is the executives who make company-wide decisions regarding politics.
Therefore, if I were on top, I could use various methods including hiring lobbyists and contributing thousands during campaigns to try to directly improve the performance of the company that I am running, as well as to directly improve my wife’s wrinkles, puffy eyes, and saggy breasts.
Is it bad to use political influence to benefit the company of which I am in charge? After all, I do have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and employees. However, what if the legislation that would benefit my company would hurt many other Americans? Then again, what if my employees would lose their jobs if I didn’t act?
The previous questions are just a sample of those which could be asked. Truly, an ethical dilemma exists. In my opinion, if we are only considering the context of this blog, one thing could be done immediately without messing with the present ethical issues. If the CEO did not profit directly from an increase in profit in his or her company, then he or she at least couldn’t exploit the political system for direct personal gain. This doesn’t eliminate the problem, because they could still exploit the system for indirect personal gain (it would probably be delayed by a couple of years).
There are so many different angles to this problem, and I cannot begin to explain them all or to give general guidance on the proper course of action. However, I hope that you find some things interesting and enjoy commenting!

Advertisement