On Ethical Whitewash
Adding detail to my skepticism regarding the ‘ethical’ economy:
- the success of a business reflects the success of its customers
- if an ethical business has only unethical customers, then the ethical business’s success is tied to (and limited by) the success of unethical customers
- an ethical business should NOT have its success tied to and limited by that of unethical business (it should avoid being ethical whitewash…)
- THEREFORE: ethical business should tie its success to ethical endeavour to be ethical itself (otherwise it is just whitewash for unethical business).
- THEREFORE: ethical business that takes custom from unethical business should take genuine effort to transform the unethical customer into an ethical one, to avoid being ethical whitewash.
This is related to perpetual motion: just as I can’t power a motor from a dynamo attached to same motor, so I can’t save Africa from the proceeds of pillaging it (why the majority of NGO work is essentially pointless…), so I can’t create an ethical business climate from the proceeds of an unethical business climate.
Literally, ethical economic value must be created freshly, and must displace unethical economic value. I really doubt that there’s any viable way of transforming unethical economic value into ethical econmic value (although the displacement can take place at multiple granularities, far below that of an entire business).
Put another way, there’s no way to really profit from selling your soul (or anything else) to the devil.
It’s obvious really.
