How to make life that bit harder

[Lilith7]

I did a business ethics paper years ago as part of my business degree.  One of the fundamental issues in business ethics at the time was around just how much responsibility do businesses have to anyone other than the owner/shareholders.

There was talk of stakeholders and various entities that had some kind of interest in the business, think clients, suppliers, neighbours, tax dept etc (basically anyone affected by the business and it's operation). 

What I felt to be the general consensus back then was the only real responsibility of the business is to the shareholder/owners.  The rest of it (Environmental, reputation, being a good corporate citizen etc) was considered discretionary and only if in the best interests of the shareholders, unless required by law...

Yeah.. well I'm never going to be able to  agree with the view that customers don't really matter as long as they use whatever it is businesses are selling.

Just treat people - including customers of businesses - as they'd want to be treated. It isn't that hard; people can manage to exist without making massive profits. And what exactly is the point of mucking up the planet we live on, knowing full well that our descendants mayn't be able to exist thanks to our idiocy.
It comes down to fairness; & sadly that appears to be lacking these days.