RE: Jodie Gong, “Life of babies in danger?!” – A Case of Government Intervention
(Source: tutor2u.net)
Immediately after reading Jodie’s blog on the “Life of babies in danger?!”, the first question which circled my mind was: Can all the blame be placed on the companies?
In her blog, Jodie strongly expresses both her concern and anger towards several companies who have been neglecting the quality of their product (in this case, milk powder) in order to maximize profits. Indeed, it is alarming to think that money has become more important than the health of infant babies and their growth, and I cannot agree more with Jodie when she states that this is a case where business ethics has been violated.
However, one crucial question we both must ask is: What kind of a role did the government play in this scenario? As Milton Friedman stated in his video, “The only social responsibility of business is to earn profits while following the law and basic ethical customs.” But in a market where there are no established laws and regulations to protect consumers such as the food industry in numerous countries around the world, how can firms blinded by the incentive of money be expected to act socially responsible when there are no grounded laws which guide them to do so? I can confidently say that a severe case where an infant died from the consumption of poisonous milk powder, such as the one Jodie mentioned in her blog, would have never occurred in a country like Germany where the government regularly monitors food companies and imposes high regulations on them to produce its goods to a certain standard.
Yes, it is easy place all the blame on the company, but could this have been avoided if there had been a case of government intervention?
SOURCE
Jodie Gong’s Blog – “Life of babies are in danger?!” – https://blogs.ubc.ca/jodiegongqibao/
WORKS CITED
Freeman, R. (2014). What is Stakeholder Theory? – R. Edward Freeman. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Zimmerli, W., Richter, K. and Holzinger, M. (2007). Corporate ethics and corporate governance. 1st ed. Berlin: Springer.