Good business or Detrimental Greed?

When is “good business” a plague on a nation?

If we look at a situation in Zimbabwe right now, the government is subsidizing Mealie Meal because the majority of the population cannot afford to buy it, this is part of a much bigger economical problem, here I am just looking at the “good business” practice.

I would say it is fair to say that “good business” is actually “detrimental greed” when your good business is causing other suffering and unnecessary hardships, it is no longer “good business”.

What it seems is happening is that the government is subsidizing Mealie Meal, and even though that brings the price into reach of more of the population, there is still not enough of it. This opens up the opportunity for the people with their fingers in the right pies to take advantage of the situation and in turn make a huge profit at the detrimental expense of others.

If you look at huge billion dollar companies, for the most part they are not earning the money through the cause of suffering to others, or at least they shouldn’t be. If you take a luxury product and mark it up 3, 4, 5 times, good for you if you can sell it. You are doing good business. If you take a necessity, a product required for the survival of people and mark it up hugely, shame on you, you are the plague we need to overcome.

There are many problems faced in Zimbabwe, but greed by everyone, not only the elite, has grown to such a degree that it makes life there unbearable. People are not trying to find ways to earn money, it looks more like people are trying to find what you desperately need and then force you to impoverish yourself in order to get it.

Companies that should be finding ways to provide goods and services at fair prices while making money are turning around and trying to find the select few products that the population will be forced to buy and then marking it up just a little higher than their imagination can go.

If you buy a bag of Mealie Meal for $10 and mark it up 25% (I think that is the usual markup for retail outlets), and sell it for $12.5, that is good business. If you buy it for $10 and sell it for $78 because you can, because people are forced to buy it for their survival, that is no good business. You can argue many points, such as, it is covering the costs of running your shop, it is taking on the loses from other products, it does not matter what excuse you can come up with for the blatant theft and consequential suffering you are causing. If you are unable to run a business without robbing people then you should do the decent thing and close up shop, let someone else with better business skills start up to fill the space you leave.

It is good to be in an in-demand industry, but you have to play fair, or you should not be in it and let other better business people, better overall people take on the roll.

If you want to be able to mark up your products in any multiple you can dream of, sell Rolex watches, get into designer dresses, do something that through the price determines someone’s survival. When was the last time you heard of the price of an iPhone causing mass starvation and death in a city? When was the last time there was a mass riot over the price of fast-food? When did you hear of the price of overseas holidays cause a child not afford to go to school?

A country is built up, or pulled down by the people in it.