11-20-2020, 01:27 PM
(11-20-2020, 01:15 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Capitalism is no better than the moral compass of the capitalists or what the government and threats of lawsuits can impose upon them. Suppose that I own a truck line "Brower Express Lines (BEL)". I'm going to set some rules. So let us suppose that someone driving a load for which the driver has a responsibility to deliver to a retail chain. I have good cause to not want any delay due to vehicle crashes, hijackings, or confiscations. So let me consider something that could be troublesome: a trucker finds an underage prostitute at a truck stop and solicits sex with her. He pays the money and commits a felony. he gets busted, and everything suggests an open-and-shut case.
(Before anyone says that someone who supplies underage prostitutes is a capitalist, I can say this: I almost endorse how China deals with human traffickers: the death penalty. With murder, the misery ends with death. With human trafficking, Hell on Earth has started for an indefinite time).
OK, I have a clear policy for anyone driving a load for me (and ultimately the producer of the load and its retail buyer): do not consort with prostitutes while delivering merchandise on BEL. It is a delay, and it is risky. I want to have a family-friendly company, and I prefer that wives of truckers know that I have such a policy. It might make it easier to find truckers. I may have the idea that people who follow the Judeo-Christian ethic (irrespective of their theology) are more reliable than people who don't. It's behavior and not theology.
I still have some responsibility to get the load from Texas to Ohio and it is in Tennessee because an employee (whom I have fired for the crime of having sex with a minor), and I am going to make sure that the load goes to its appointed destination. I will find someone to complete the trip even if it requires me to find someone reasonably close, put him in a taxi, and get him to that truck stop to complete that trip. You can bet that I will dock the fired trucker for the cost of the cab fare, at the least. I already have a policy in place and I make it clear: do not do prostitution while delivering freight for me. It is made abundantly clear.
Now here is a risk awaiting a truck line: it is possible that some crusading DA will seize the cargo because someone that I had delivering it got ensnared with a minor. Nobody knows when that will happen first. I do not want to pay for a cargo lost under those circumstances. Eventually truck lines will face that risk.
Moral conduct is far less risky than immoral conduct. We have laws to make grossly-immoral behavior (like having sex with a minor) not worth the risk. We also have civil courts to make sure that businesses recognize the risk and set policies that make such deeds unlikely.
If ethics don't cause me to set a no-prostitution-on-the-road rule, then economic consequences of delays and lost revenue do. If that doesn't work, then the risk of severe economic losses may be all that there is to compel a business owner to compel integrity in operations. Do you think I would risk a load of either a perishable commodity (meat) or high-value merchandise (the latest clothing or electronics) to someone who wants to get some sexual gratification that could be illegal?
Such are capitalist choices. I could operate on one of three levels, all of them working to the same end: efficiency, risk containment, and asset protection.
The morality, or lack thereof, of individual capitalists or irrelevant. Capital is a systemic totality to which everyone, including the individual capitalist, is yoked.
