Profit making and moral obligations in an economically disparate world: The challenges facing health care corporations

Abstract

It is recognised that a driving prerogative for any corporation is to make profits, however this fiscal ambition must be balanced with an understanding of broader moral responsibilities in a world characterised by huge economic disparities, with poverty signalling the nadir of this continuum. The argument forwarded here is that while it would be good for health care corporations to care about the worlds poor out of compassion, it will be more strategic politically to argue for reducing global disparities based on self-interest. Thus, corporations are ill advised to ignore their broader social and moral responsibilities, because the consequences of a narrow and selfish profit making ambition may well culminate in the unnecessary exploitation of communities and resources, with an increased likelihood of negative long term repercussions in the form of social instability, industrial action and even terrorism, which will invariably and negatively impact on the bottom line.