During
my college days, I’ve been invited with one of my closest friend in school to
attend a business presentation –they call it “networking”. He was very
persistent so I decided to agree and then he took me to the venue along with
the other people that he invited. I was one of the three guests that he
invited. There was a lot of people in the room chatting, they were excited and
we were clueless of what we were doing there. My friend did not disclose things
in detail of what was going to be discussed or the main purpose of the program
–he just said that it was a “business opportunity”. I’ve noticed that people
there who invited their guests kept on saying the same thing, that it is a one
chance of a lifetime for this “business opportunity.” After a while, the
speaker of the program came in. My first impression when I saw the speaker was
that he was trying so hard to have that successful image of his in order to
impress people specially the first time guests like me. His entrance was
cheered with a synchronized applause from its members and they were in full
support laughing from every joke that he made and agrees to every word he says
from his script like he had a second voice from a chorale. The speaker and its
members kept on bragging about the money that they earned from their business
group which they are promoting in order for us to join. They bragged about the
cars that they’ve bought houses that they’ve acquired and other things
including luxury. The speaker then turned out to be a God that he made himself
believable of all of his accomplishments and success through networking. What
is supposed to be an inspirational talk turned out to be the biggest joke that
I have ever heard. He was not that convincing and I pity those who believed in
his bag of lies. I just looked at him speak like a false prophet with his
superstitions that he claims to play fairly with their exclusive networking
group.
They
claim that they operate legally and that their business is registered in the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is obvious that what they are
doing is misleading the people to its business products when the real intent of
the whole networking and recruitment turns out to be a pyramid scam. Those
people are scammers pretending to sell a product that is licensed from SEC but
the real operation of the business is not the product itself but networking.
There are ethical
principles of business; there are factors that we consider to be ethical in
business. One of it is utilitarianism which
is based on overall consequences of our acts –in this case it’s the networking
scam. This leads us to the following questions:
Who benefit from the act?
Obviously, those who are
on top of the network would benefit the most from this act. The new ones are
new pawns that were supposed to be us during that time.
Who are burdened?
The new recruits would be
burdened. When I got there I immediately figured out that what everybody’s
saying are quite unrealistic and that it’s too good to be true. I knew that I
was wasting my time there and I’ve made a fool out of myself going out there
and listen to a false businessman who clearly takes advantage of other people’s
ignorance. With so much promise of success, there are a large percentage of new
people that could fall victim to their scam. I am not one of those who will
fall into their trap but I’m pretty sure a lot would be involved because they
were blinded by such promises.
Does the act maximize the
total net benefit to everyone concerned (stakeholders)?
The only one that would
benefit is those on the top of the network. It is like a food chain and we let
ourselves be eaten by predators by falling victim and joining their group.
The other factor that I
would like to consider with this topic is the ethics of care. The following are the questions raised involving
ethics of care:
Does the act show proper
care to people we have special relationships with?
Given
this deceitful circumstances, it seems like caring doesn’t exist. For instance,
my friend didn’t care what he was risking. He risked our friendship, my trust
and his reputation. From that day on I’ve encountered people who were in
networking and how it ruined their relationships with their families, friends,
co-workers and other people who are close to them. It narrowed their world that
shattered opportunities and dreams that is why it took them some time to
recover for making one of the biggest mistakes in their lives –that thing
called “business opportunity”.
Will
it earn the trust of people we value?
Trust plays the biggest issue here in
this topic. When trust is ruined, it is difficult to fix or on some
circumstances it is permanently ruined. This puts too much risk in trust from
people we value most because this is purely a deception, ambiguous and
misleading.
As
individuals we become desperate to do the wrong things in life in order to
survive or find meaning for ourselves. We become selfish and we risk the trust
of those people we value the most because we are pressured to make a living.
Some of us tend to deny the right path to follow and make room for opportunity
by making shortcuts even though we are fully aware of the consequences that our
reckless decisions might harm others that we value. We just don’t value those
who are close to us but we should also value the society as a whole. Some people make bad
choices because of desperation and pressure and bad things happen. Forgiveness
would always give them new hope and strength to realize that the world hadn’t
ended.
I end this blog with a
quote from Mark Twain that says “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."
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