A long-standing issue in business ethics is the rights of investors versus the rights of workers. The excerpt below reflects this conflict in the timber industry. At issue for northern forestry regions are both material outcomes and matters of principles and rights.
Investors can use their profits to gain a foothold in the new industry elsewhere.
In the market economy, there are few obligations for investors when an industry from which they have profited is in decline. The costs of unemployment and a much eroded welfare system are borne largely by workers. Logging the globe . McGill-Queen's University Press, pp. Courtesy of Dr. David L. Adams, Professor of Forest Resources, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho.