Name
Institution
Market Place Ethics The question of ethics in the market place has been an ongoing debate for as long as the world can remember. History has shown that more often than not firms and individuals will try to use to dubious methods to control prices and distribution of goods and services in order to gain super natural profits. Over time the government has tried to curb these behaviors by coming up with laws that help protect both buyers and consumers from unethical firms. Some have indeed been prosecuted in the quest to achieve this noble quest of having a market that is ethical. But what does it mean to have an ethical market place? Three things a market has to achieve …show more content…
A market is referred to as a perfectly competitive market if it achieves the following conditions; freedom of entry and exit, has unlimited number of buyers and sellers non-controlling the market, perfect knowledge of the market to both buyers and sellers, same kind of goods and services to all sellers, same costs of producing goods and services and same price charged for the same goods and service, maximizes utility and finally there is no external regulation of the market from the government or other forces. Why do we believe that a perfectly competitive market is the most probable one to achieve market ethics? Let’s evaluate it on the three qualifications of an ethical …show more content…
These firms influence prices charged on goods and there is a barrier of entry to the market due to high cost required for a firm to run its activities in the industry. These characteristics have made oligopolistic markets unable to meet capitalist justice, economic efficiency and respect negative rights. Firms in oligopolistic market tend to engage in anticompetitive activities that are unethical like; manipulation of supply, price fixing , market allocation, bid rigging, exclusive dealing arrangements, tying arrangements, price maintenance agreements, predatory price discrimination and bribery. All this enable the firms in oligopolistic firms to act as monopolies and thus charge high prices; control the market making buyers have no freedom of choice and less maximization of utility making them