Politics as part of Business Ethics
Cases from Belarus and US, totalitarism and democracy.
By Aleksey Narko for the Business Ethics class of SGH (Warsaw school of economics)
3. Political Ideologies
• Totalitarism
Every aspect of people’s lives must be
controlled to preserve order
• Pluralism
Both private and public groups need to balance
each other’s power.
• Anarchism
Only individuals and private groups can
preserve personal liberties
4. Political Ideologies cont.
• Democracy
• Government leaders are elected by the wide
participation of the people or their
representatives
• Freedom of expression
• Periodic elections
• Full civil and property rights
• Minority rights
• Nonpolitical bureaucracies
5. Case studies
• Elections in Belarus
December 2010
• 30000 people
• 600 in prison
Business ethics?
• Biggest mobile
operators sell their
customers
• Thousands of people
are asked to come to
talk with police
6. Repressions
• 1996-2011: 500 names
in the list (source:
spring96.org)
• Media, Science,
Education
• 3 radios, 5 journals and
newspapers
• 30 students dismissed
and 60 are threatened
7. Freedom of expression???
When you can be fired for Politics in US?
•When your boss is vocal for his/her own beliefs
•When it wastes time
•When discriminatory language is involved
•When representing a company.
•“A Tennessee middle school football coach is
looking to the future after his termination for
alleged political incorrectness.”