College of Business Administration

Seminar in Business and the Good Society

Discussion Questions for March 19, 1998:

The Nature and Logic of Capitalism

Facilitated by: Joe Seiley and Jim Shaver

1. Who are the real claimants of "residual" (Who does it belong to?)? How does this tie in with notions of stockholder supremacy? Stakeholder supremacy?

2. What is the meaning of domination? Exploitation? Are these two constructs ever normatively (i.e., ethically) justified?

3. Is income equality necessary to achieve the good society? If so, is this goal compatible with a free market system? If not, what modifications to (or intrusions into) the free-market system would remedy problems of distributive justice?

4. What is greed? How is greed different than self interest? Than selfishness? Is greed merely a characteristic of human nature...or does greed represent a case of moral failure? Is greed ever good? If so, in what ways might it be good?

5. Where is the line between exploitation of workers and fair distribution of profits?

6. Who decides how residual wealth (profit) is distributed? Why do they get to decide?

7. How does unconstrained capitalism contribute or detract from society?

8. Does capitalism have a place in your Utopia?

9. How much wealth (profit) is enough?

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