Corporate profits vs. human response

My favorite AJC editorial columnist, Jay Booker, has written a telling opinion piece about the difference between corporations' interest in profits and government's mission to help solve people problems.   It is neatly contained in one simple story.

Tomas Lopez was a lifeguard employed by a private company to provide lifeguards for the city of Hallandale, Florida.    Recently, Lopez was fired for helping to save a drowning man at a nearby beach section that was not part of the city contract.  The man's condition was serious enough that he had to be hospitalized in intensive care but was expected to recover.

Lopez's employer gave him a second chance.  They called him in and asked if he would do the same thing again in similar circumstances.   When he said "yes," they told him that he could no longer work for them as a lifeguard.  They also fired two other lifeguards who said they would make similar decisions.

Lopez was quoted, "It was the moral thing to do.  I would never pick a job over my morals."

Booker explains the employer's point of view.  As a business they have only one mission:  to maximize profits for its shareholders.  They had to consider liability and contract obligations. 

Joy Cooper, mayor of Hallandale, was "horrified" by the company's action and is rethinking the decision to hire private companies to provide the city's services.  A man's life was at stake, and putting business profits first "doesn't reflect our culture.  We're a small, caring community," she said.

Bookman then contrasts this to the mission of the government -- "Government's essential purpose is to serve people, even the hapless swimmer who chose to venture beyond the protected swimming area."

This, of course, is what happens when governments outsource their services -- whether it be the Blackwater combat privatization in Iraq, which operated without all of the restraints and the diplomatic backing that the government forces operated under -- or whether it is guarding swimmers on public beaches or fighting fires.

The question is:  what is the basic motive and the basic mission of the organization.   I prefer the humanitarian focus of government -- with all its inefficiency and potential corruption -- to the known hard-hearted and equally corrupt practices of private enterprise.

Even more, I long for the older values and the more local nature of businesses that led them to regard their integrity and reputation for customer satisfaction as the most important measure of success.   When success is measured in the size of contracts, the lower costs of massive purchasing power, and the streamlining of operations by national franchising -- then you tend to get impersonal coldness.   It doesn't have to be that way -- evidence of corporate "moral values" in a few national enterprises (like Starbucks).   But it often seem to be.

Ralph