What are the main ethics of doing business in countries with totalitarian governments?
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Wow.  Business ethics in a society with a totalitarian government?  That's tough.  \n\nIf you ever find yourself forced to do business in a country with a totalitarian government, here are three general rules to remember:  \n\n1.) Know that society's real power structure from top to bottom, and act accordingly.  \n- Many totalitarian governments have "puppets" or figureheads that act as masks or mere gatekeepers to those who really call the shots.  \n- Then you've got those annoying little middle-men in the power structure who control only a small aspect of the government / society, but who are keys to the success of your business if you are able to evade or placate them.\n- When you can, announce to the country's general public that your company's success has been due to the benevolence of the present regime.  You gain a favorable reputation in the government's eyes. \n\n2.)  Be well prepared for the cost of effectively evading or placating this power structure, and make allowances for it in your business operating cost.  When I say cost, I don't mean just time, money, manpower --- I mean the sweat and moral convictions that might be lost along the way.\n\n3.) Do not deal with the government any more than you have to, or you will be in over your head.  Remember that totalitarian governments are always exhaustingly bureaucratic, and frequently corrupt. \n\nI know these rules sound nasty. But if for any reason you (or your business partners / directors) are unwilling or unable to work by these rules, do not attempt doing business in that country at all. (Or if you're just a company employee, ask to be reassigned somewhere else.)
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Radical totalitarian dictatorships\nRadical dictatorships emerged in the Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy.\nThese dictatorships rejected parliamentary and liberal values (including rationality, peaceful progress, economic freedom, and a strong middle class), and sought full control over the masses--of whom they sought to mobilize for action.\nLenin, in the Soviet Union, provided a model for single-party dictatorship.\nTotalitarian leaders believed in will power, conflict, the worship of violence--and the idea that the individual was less valuable than the state and there are no lasting rights.\nTotalitarianism was a permanent revolution.\nThe USSR was totalitarianism of the left, while Nazi Germany was totalitarianism of the right.\nSome historians describe the totalitarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler as fascism which grew out of capitalism.\nFascism was expansionist nationalism, anti-socialism and anti-working class movements, and the glorification of war.\nMore recently, historians have emphasized the uniqueness of totalitarian rule in each country.\nStalin's Soviet Union\nStalin's modern totalitarian dictatorship was instituted by his five-year plans--which were economic, social (and propaganda) plans to build a new socialist humanity.\nFrom Lenin to Stalin\nBy 1921, the economy of Russia had been destroyed.\nIn 1921, Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) reestablished limited economic freedom in an attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry.\nPeasants bought and sold goods on the free market.\nAgricultural production grew, and industrial production surpassed the prewar level.\nEconomic recovery and Lenin's death in 1924 brought a struggle for power between Stalin and Trotsky, which Stalin won.\nStalin met the ethnic demands for independence within the multinational Soviet state by granting minority groups limited freedoms.\nStalin's theory of "socialism in one country," or Russia building its own socialist society, was more attractive to many Communists than Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution," or the overthrow of other European states.\nBy 1927, Stalin had crushed all opposition and was ready to launch an economicsocial revolution.\nThe fiveyear plans\nThe first fiveyear plan (1928) to increase industrial and agricultural production was extremely ambitious, but Stalin wanted to erase the NEP, spur the economy, and catch up with the West.\nStalin waged a preventive war against the betteroff peasants, the kulaks, to bring them and their land under state control.\n"Collectivization" of the peasants' land resulted in disaster for agriculture and unparalleled human tragedy.\nCollectivization in the Ukraine resulted in massive famine in 1932-1933.\nIn the USSR, 93 percent of peasant families had been forced onto collective farms (by 1933).\nPeasants fought back by securing the right to cultivate tiny family plots.\nBut it was a political victory for Stalin and the Communist party, as the peasants were eliminated as a potential threat.\nThe fiveyear plans brought about a spectacular growth of heavy industry, especially with the aid of government control of the workers and foreign technological experts.\nMassive investment in heavy industry, however, meant low standards of living for workers.\nLife and culture in Soviet society\nThe Communists wanted to create a new kind of society and human personality.\nNonfarm wages fell--by 1937, workers could buy only about 60 percent of what they bought in 1928.\nLife was hard, but people were often inspired by socialist ideals and did gain some social benefits.\nPersonal advancement came through education, and a skilled elite emerged.\nWomen were given much greater opportunities in industry and education.\nThe 1917 revolution proclaimed complete equality of rights for women.\nIn the 1920s, divorce and abortion were made easy, and women were urged to work outside the home and liberate themselves sexually.\nMedicine and other
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There are many challenges in establishing good corporate governance in developing, emerging and transitional economies.  Here are a couple of my thoughts:\n\nCorporate governance typically means good internal controls and procedures that adhere to certain GAAP standards.  Unfortunately, in many developing companies the local practices do not conform to those standards in terms of paperwork, recordkeeping, etc., so its difficult to educate not only your employees but your suppliers and vendors on the need to do certain things.\n\nCorporate governance (and US law for that matter that governs US multinational corps) forbids bribes and other activities, which is laudable, but in many developing countries payments to officials or at least gift giving is a very intrinsic part of the local culture.
424371
how to protect countries around the world from lying, cheating, murdering bass terds like us
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I have great respect for people who refuse to serve their countries on a matter of principle. \nIf you were a young person in Germany during the 30s and 40s would you expect them to serve their country. I suppose that its okay to serve in Cambodia during Pol Pot's regime.\nTo blindly serve your country is foolish. You are a human being with intelligence. Surely you need to exercise that intelligence.
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There has yet to be a functional government that was actually communistic, and very few socialistic ones that lasted more than a couple of years, no matter what they advertised themselves as being.\n\nI'll take free enterprise any day, over socialism, communism, capitalism or fascism all of which have the unity of government control of business as a shared sin.
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Do a search on the Dept. of State government website and see if they have anything.\n\nI know that in China some things have changed, but not enough. Not too long ago, a class of school children were killedand injured making fireworks during school, which they were forced to do.  95% of fireworks in the U.S. are made in China.\n\nIf you are interested, e-mail me and I will send you my research paper on whether U.S. businesses should do business in China with regard to human rights issues.  It may give you some thoughts and leads.\n\nSue
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Profit with honor,\nAdvertising must not offend any sector of the society, and\nEnvironment must not be sacrificed for profits.
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A company's raison d'etre is almost always profit motivated. Listed companies under pressure to reap profits, are further accountable to their shareholders, who expect dividends and capital returns from their investments (Stocks, Shares, Unit trusts, and so on.)\n\nSecondary but of equal importance, is the required compliance to various regulations of the Country, Stock exchange, Companies Act and any other provisions laid down by the Government.\n\nDoing business in all countries including England and US, require regulatory compliance on all forms of mass media. \n\nWhilst regulatory requirements of national security of concern in capitalist markets, the main motivation comes from trade protectionism enforced through federal and/or state legislation.\n\nChina, on the otherhand, has a political system which is very much intergral to the free market policy. So long as the Status Quo is maintained with the existing power structure of governance not under threat (perceived and real), all other functions play second fiddle.\n\nChina's laws happens to be more glaring that they uphold the Collective over Individual freedom.\n\nThe reason of political sensitivity is specific with no uncertain terms, backed by severe penalties, dubbed by media as the Great Firewall of China. General context (2)(3)(4) to provide on the severity of the issue.\n\nThe regulations are spelt out in “2. Censorship by Internet Content Providers: Delegating censorship to business”, paragraphs One through Six. (1)\n\n\nAbridged: Notably Paragraphs Three through Six are specific, with One and Two, providing provisio as follows:\n\n- Para. Three, and Key to it, places the Action and Onus on the business to police the site on behalf of the government, “taken down manually by company employees.” “To date, Yahoo! is the only Western company known to have signed the pledge (as will be discussed further in Section IV, Part 1).”\n\n- Para. Four, provides for any breaches to employees and Company that may result in revocation of the company’s license. To avoid a breach, services maintain lists that will raise a red flag for manual removal.\n\n- Para. Five, refers to search engines similarly follow suit. Additionally, “the user is prevented from knowing that the forbidden content exists at all. This is a deliberate choice made by the operator of the search engine.”\n\n- Para. Six, contained within the notes.\n\n- Para. One, spells out the purpose to place accountability on private business to prevent politically sensitive and objectionable content information.\n\n- Para. Two, requires licenses to be displayed.
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There is Liberal Deomcracies like the US, UK and most of europe, where people can vote and the government allowed private properties and business and does not interfere too much in the economy. Communism like China and Russia in the past, this is where the government owns everything and people have limited political rights. There is also fascism like Germany and Italy in the Second World War, this is a chaotic system where the government rigidly controls the social structure of the country.\n\nIf I were you I'd look up Liberalism, Socialism, Communism and Fascism on wikipedia or answers.com. Or even better get a book from the library.
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http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/resources/biic_student_writing/fy/human_rights.pdf#search='yugoslavia%20war%20human%20rights%20offences'\n\nTry the link above it also contains six other links that would help you alot... good luck...
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On earth!!!!\n\nWe are entangled in local customs, norms and laws.\n\nTo do best on earth you must do something good for entire humanity. This may be very small not to becomes a news or a part of history.\n\nIn general life you should adopt good human values. The human values include:\n\nCare for others\nSacrifice for others\nExpression of obligation and gratitude to others.\nAvoid requesting others.\nDo not demand from others.
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I think you will find http://www.enterweb.org/ethics.htm provides a great place to start at least.\n\nAll the best!\n\nCheers\nAlister\nhttp://www.marketscience.com.au
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Until you said indvidual freedom, I would have said China-- communism almost sounds nice. But no nation has all of those things except the Kingdom of Heaven, which is eternal.
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This question is vague and not exactly related to law and ethics.  Nevertheless, I've included a link to a USA Today story about IBM and outsourcing in North Carolina, which the article proclaims is at the "center" of the outsourcing debate.  Similar incidents can be found with a Google search.
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"If everybody stands together"...\n\nNow THAT'S the problem, because people are self-centred by nature and WON'T stand together to eradicate corruption :p\n\nFor example, you're a police officer investigation corruption. If the person you're investigating finds you out and whispers: "hey buddy, you get a 30% share of the profits, so shut up about us, okay?"... What would you do? Maybe you'd uphold your morality and get yourself into big trouble, but most people would just go along with the dirty business...\n\nI know, human nature is sad, but that's just the way it is!\n\nOilfield writes: "We just need to be harsher on people who are corrupt."\n\nMy Reply: No matter of laws or harsh penalties can stem corruption. The penalty for corruption in China is death, but guess what, 70% of the local government officials there are corrupt!\n\nebk1974 writes: "If every deal and every monetary exchange made was forced to be done in the open for all to see and was in conjunction with a strict accounting that was also open to scrutiny, that would make corruption virtually impossible."\n\nMy Reply: You can set laws, you can force people with a whip to do things in the open... but people will still find ways to hide in dark corners and escape from the law.
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There may be a conflict here, however  you can not have one with out the other.  True Capitalism will only work in a true democracy.  Whenever the government steps in to control all business you will usually find one type of totalitarian government or the other running things and this takes capitalism out of the equation and make for a very dreary life for those working in that country.  Capitalism is a system of hope, if you are poor in a capitalist society you have hope of climbing out of being poor.  In a non-capitalist society if you are poor that is where you can expect to stay.