The morality of doing business with the government

[D'kian]

What is the moral status of doing business with the government. I mean specifically selling goods or services to government agencies.

to begin with it depends which agencies. It would be moral, in a semi-free country, to provide agencies engaged in proper government functions with the goods and services they need to funtion. this includes police and armed forces without question. Prisons, too, if run by the government. But what about the legitimate authorities who oversee such agencies? Example, is it moral to provide commisary service to Congress, or to sell office supplies to the White House?

And how about agencies not carrying out proper governmetn functions? Is it morela to provide, say, the SOcial Security administration with a computer system, or to sell vehicles to FEMA?

I haven't yet made a decision. On the one hand it can be seen as getting back some of the money taken by government. On the other the acceptance of FEMA and such as normal customers can be a moral sanction that shouldn't be given.

Any thoughts?

[Shinokamen]

I don't claim to have a lot of experience in this kind of thing, but I would agree that accepting money gained from taxes would sanction the increase of taxes. What I mean is that if you were to stop accepting tax dollars or non-existent dollars (i.e. those printed by the federal reserve without any value) the government would probably stop using them.

To recap, I think that you should not accept money from the government, at least not in the many of the forms which it is currently handed out in.

[eriatarka]

I would definitely avoid doing work which directly benefits the areas of government I most strongly oppose (domestic surveillence, narcotics enforcement, etc), but I wouldnt have any moral problems with trading government bonds or T-bills if I worked in finance. I think theres a spectrum here rather a binary moral/immoral choice - some parts of the government are just so disgustingly evil that I'd lose respect for someone who done business with them regardless of how 'profitable' it was, whereas others are slightly more tolerable and I think some interaction can be justified from the standpoint of personal gain.

Edited July 30, 2008 by eriatarka

[DavidOdden]

To recap, I think that you should not accept money from the government, at least not in the many of the forms which it is currently handed out in.

Does that mean you refused to accept that check from the Treasury back in June or so?

[Shinokamen]

You got me there.

Actually, I did not qualify for that particular hand-out, but I still would have taken it had it been offered to me.

I would justify that as money that should have been left to me in the first place, although I know that it would have been better if that money had gone to pay off the debt. However, I know that the money would not have been used to pay off the debt, it would have been used to buy more things that the government should not be concerned with; like the housing market or banks.

[Greebo]

Does that mean you refused to accept that check from the Treasury back in June or so?

Why would anyone refuse to accept back one's own money that was forcibly taken in the first place?

[brian0918]

Why would anyone refuse to accept back one's own money that was forcibly taken in the first place?

Because all you're accepting is a loan. The tax rebate checks were paid for with deficit spending, so you didn't get any real money back, you just got a larger debt that the government will force you to pay back in the future. This is probably how the next president will get elected - whoever offers the larger "tax rebate". It's nothing more than vote-buying. Most people fall for it because they want as many handouts as possible.

Edited July 30, 2008 by brian0918

[D'kian]

I thought of something else.

Suppose you own a car dealership that sells goods only to the government. Now, regardless of which agencies you sell to, police, military, welfare agencies, etc, all your money comes from taxes. But you also pay taxes for your income (let's leave sales taxes and fees out for the moment).

So let's say you sell $20 million in cars and trucks to the government per year, and the government takes $7 million out of that in taxes (assuming a tax rate of 35%). Isn't the government in a way forcing you to give it a discount?

Of course, the IRS collects the money, and other agencies spend it (even if you sell vehicles tot he IRS).

[DavidOdden]

Why would anyone refuse to accept back one's own money that was forcibly taken in the first place?

This might explain his response.

[Greebo]

Because all you're accepting is a loan. The tax rebate checks were paid for with deficit spending, so you didn't get any real money back, you just got a larger debt that the government will force you to pay back in the future. This is probably how the next president will get elected - whoever offers the larger "tax rebate". It's nothing more than vote-buying. Most people fall for it because they want as many handouts as possible.

All deficit spending is "a larger debt the government will force us to pay back in the future", not just this chunk they handed back. They Government shouldn't be taking this much in the first place, so if they're gonna borrow from somewhere else to give it back to me now, I'm gonna do my best to turn that money into more money faster than they turn my share of the debt into a larger amount.

[D'kian]

Let me try again. I think the problem, mione, is that the US economy is not quite as mixed as the Mexican economy. So first a few explanations:

1) In Mexico the government owns, by law, anything that is found underground. So if you find gold, oil, lead, opal or anything else under lands you own, it belongs to the state and you cannot exploit it. You only "own" the surface of any land (and that amkes a mockery of property rights). Mining is carried out largely by private companies under government license, but oil is the province of the state-owned oil monopoly only.

2) Various government agencies at various levels own and operate various services offered to the public. Some airports are owned by the Federal government, for example. Lots of hospitals, in fact most hospitals, are owned by any of a myriad government egencies. There are some owned by the Institute for Social Security (long story there), byt the Federal Department of Health Services, by local departments of health services, etc, etc. Many highways and freeways are also government owned. On the flip side, there are private hospitals, airports and highways (the latter are concessions, actually).

Now suppose you own a firm that sells office supplies (as example). The government, which owns a big aprt of the economy, purchases very large quantities of everything, including office supplies. What then is the morality of selling reams of paer, toner, file cabinets and such to government agencies as described above? To the oil monopoly, to the government-owned hospitals, etc?