They sold their company because of other ideas; had to do with sharing, trade, etc.  Read this article.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/04/ben-jerrys-fairtrade-ethical-business

They acknowledge that Unilever doesn't share their values, but adds this...

Ben and Jerry aren't stupid businessmen and they knew what they were doing the entire time.  You make it sound as if they just sold their company, rubbed their hands together, laughed in unison while the thunder and lightning cracked across the sky and swam in a giant vault filled with buy-out money.  I mean, really?  Are you that narrow? 

Besides, your argument on people like Suzi Orman and Warren Buffet is illogical.  Some people are smart about the business world and came out ahead when the market was at it's peak, some are still learning to tread water and have high expectations of wealth, some just choose to live in the system and try to get rid of this broken economy and others have just given up.  There are acceptances in this system, living in it and disregarding it.  People like B&J, Orman and Buffet accept this system; the people that work for them are just getting by in it.  Those that disregard it and do nothing to try and oust it, well, who needs them around to get in the way of social progress?

Well then don't do business with these 'selfish' businesses, only buy from or work for 'unselfish' ones. Start an 'unselfish' business yourself. But, what you want is to decide who is selfish and unselfish and then put a gun to my head to tell me to live by your standard. Sounds pretty selfish on your part if you ask me.

Uh... read up on early man (anthropology) and some basic evolutionary psychology (no not philosophy), look up "hoarding" on the net sometime, look up antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders, read up on a good 2 or 3 centuries of post-antiquity rulers then get back to us on these absolutist lectures of present day altruism. Until then, you basically ask to be laughed out of the thread.

(IMO) Business/commerce exists to distribute goods, nothing more. If having one's name on the opening of a hospital or humanitarian fund helps business, all the merrier. If it doesn't... well, someone can always tax it out of the "right" people with legal force, can they not? It's terrible I have to point out socioeconomics 101 to you as well as quite a few millennia of confirmed human behaviors, but alas... if no else does it in these meaningless ideological pissing contests, who will?

Good point, but is it not true that like many other minarchists and "anarchists", you want a special set of rules to deal with your own representative socioeconomic criteria because you don't... feel like 'playing ball' with the rest of the law-abiding* country you participate in? May I remind you this isn't a semantic debate here... I'm asking for you to clarify your ideology for everyone else just so we can all decide for ourselves "business rights crank, or non-crank?"

*Assume I meant "all laws save for vice laws"

Ah yes, the mantra of "if you don't like who's selling it and what they are selling, boycott and setup a labor-friendly business almost predestined to implode".

I've seen on it quite a few other forums already, long before anyone read the words "rational response squad" on their monitor.  Tell me, does this strategy work for private enterprises like Nike? What about Reebok? Texas Instruments? Sony?

What about BMW and Porche? They are already 'boycotted' by anyone isn't able to afford their price tag. Also, something about a "godwin argument" being not too far from the horizon with regards to these guys. How about Suzuki? What good does boycotting them do here?

Tell me, how does one compete with businesses that manufacture almost exclusively in the far east? (if someone wants a list, I can trump one up in a heartbeat)

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I've been accused of such but no one has ever been able to point out anywhere I suggested or supported any special laws or rules supporting anyone. IMO the governments sole goal ought to be to keep us from using force against each other and provide an impartial referee to freely made contracts. It never has a role in providing preference to one group or another. As such I support laws against physical force (robbery, murder, assault etc.), laws against fraud and laws that protect the common environment.

The central question I ask myself when determining whether or not I support a law is whether someone's freedom to go about their life is being restricted by someone else and is that restriction enough to justify restricting the liberty of the perpetrator. In the case of murder, robbery, identity theft, dumping waste in the nearest river etc. it is very clear the perpetrator is putting substantial restrictions on the victim(s) as such the government should get involved. In other cases it is far less clear cut, for example, here in Ohio there is a big issue with windmills, the things are quite noisy if you live close to them but you get a rather nice check for having one on your land. What people are doing is putting windmills on their land at the farthest corner from their house, sometimes really close to a neighbor. They get the check, the neighbor has to live with the noise.

While I support the freedom to do what you want with your property, such actions also have direct repercussions on the neighbors ability to use their property, as such there is a strong case for government to get involved. Environmental issues tend to have a lot of these conflicts as some pollution is inevitable but at some point the pollution reaches a point where it is too severely restricting the liberty of others. On the other hand, some among the green movement would have government restrictions so strict that no one really has any freedom. There is certainly room for someone approaching the problem with the same general philosophy as me to come to a different conclusion on these types of conflicts and exactly when it is time for government to intervene.  

When it comes to economic policy I reject the idea that an employer is somehow using force when determining what type of wage to offer. Whether I offer $1 a day or $100 an hour I am not forcing you to take the job, I am not forcing you to work, I am asking you to work and offering $X in return. Which inevitably brings up the response "but I HAVE to have a job", so?

First, in modern USA you don't actually HAVE to have a job. Millions of people survive every day without a job. You want a job because you desire to have a better life than you could have without one or maybe you are just bored. Second, nothing is stopping you from becoming self-employed other than you and your ability to persuade other people to give you money in exchange for some value you provide them.

An employer is nothing other than a person who agrees to purchase your labor over an extended period of time, usually with the intent of selling that labor or the results of that labor to someone else for more than they are paying you. The employer is essentially selling your labor for you and accepting the risks that your labor might not be in demand. You are accepting a lower amount of money than the end consumer will potentially pay for your labor in exchange for the security of a consistent paycheck, perhaps the use of equipment and the organization of the labor efforts of others that might increase the value of your labor. Complaining about an employer not buying enough labor from you or not paying enough for it etc. is no different than me complaining about you not buying a decades old Chardonnay from me.

Suppose I had a bottle of 1995 Marcassin Chardonnay and offered to sell it to you. If you do, great, I take my cut off the top make a little money you get the Chardonnay which you believe is as valuable or more valuable than whatever price is agreed to. If you don't it is irrelevant why you choose not to purchase it from me. Maybe you don't have the cash, maybe you don't want it, maybe you decide to purchase from someone else or maybe I change my mind and decide I want to drink it instead of selling it. So what?

It is your money, your choice what to purchase or not purchase with it. Until I sell it, it is my wine and I can resell or drink it depending on my preference. Most (all?) people would agree that neither of us should be forced by a third party to either buy or sell the wine at a certain price. They would probably agree that we should honor whatever agreement we negotiate and if we decide not to come to an agreement we can go our separate ways. Suppose for example I paid $350 for the bottle and I offered to sell it to you for $500. You refuse because that is way too high for Marcassin and offer me $300. I refuse because at $300 I lose money. Maybe we come to an agreement at $425 or maybe you decide you don't really want the wine that much, either way it is our choice and most people would support that.  

However, as soon as you replace wine with labor, suddenly many look at it extremely differently. Suddenly the purchaser has to pay a minimum price, they say the purchaser should be forced to purchase something- maybe not that particular wine from me but you must purchase some wine from someone or else you are "hoarding" your cash and should be punished by the government for it. When an employer offers the equivalent of the $300 for the wine people attack them as "greedy", if we settle on the $425 level where the purchaser is maybe paying more than they wanted but are willing and the seller is getting less than desired but willing- suddenly in terms of purchasing labor people say the employer is "exploiting" the downtrodden employee.

All of this boils down to what I see as the central disagreement between me and the leftist view of economics. To me there is no essential difference between purchasing/selling the labor of someone sweeping the floors and purchasing/selling a bottle of wine. The wine IS the result of peoples labor. When I purchase the wine I am paying for the labor of everyone who made it into what it is. From the farmer who grew the grapes, to the pickers, the crushers, the vintner, the sales people, the bottle makers, the labelers, even whoever properly stored it for the intervening years. Now suppose the person storing this fine wine didn't realize its value and sold it to me for $50. Most people would probably congratulate me on the great deal I got.

I guaran-damn-tee that Brian is very happy when he finds a cut of meat in the grocery store that is underpriced. When an employer underpays an employee it is exploitation, when Brian underpays for steak it is called getting a great deal. Where do you think the money to pay everyone in the process comes from? If I underpay for the wine or Brian underpays for a steak, somewhere along the line someone is getting less money than they could have. Maybe they know it and consciously decided to accept less than they could charge for some reason, or maybe it is out of ignorance. Does it matter? No.

Value is not objective, if someone is willing to sell me that wine for $50 it is worth $50. If I bought it for $300 and can't find anyone else to pay me more than $250 it is worth $250. It doesn't matter whether that wine traveled through half a dozen exchanges before it got to me or only one. Why does everyone assume it should be different if I'm the first person in the process hiring someone to plant vines on my land? Labor is worth whatever price the parties involved are willing to negotiate, just like the wine. Saying that an employer should be forced to pay $X for an employee, or must hire Y number of employees is no different than proposing you must pay $x for the wine or Brian must pay $x for the steak. 

So by arguing that employers should have the same freedom to purchase or not purchase labor that we routinely allow everyone else to have am I arguing for laws that provide preference to one group? I don't believe so.

As I ran into a self-styled "AnarchistSage" (anarcho-capitalist) who did very much argue in favor of having a special set of rules for himself in that was completely contrary to codified law, I felt the need to ask. Some Anarchists are like that, as it happens.

I hope you didn't mind clarifying your positions, Beyond, even in response to seemingly trumped-up criticisms.

/bow

Why is it necessary for us to compete with China in manufacturing? Contrary to popular myth, the US manufacturing sector remains strong in terms of what it actually produces and aside from a few dips due to recession has been consistently growing. What has been shrinking is the number of people who work in manufacturing. Technology has made it so one person in a factory can produce far more than one person could 20 years, 50 years or 100 years ago.

We were once an agriculture based economy, then technology like tractors and combines made it possible for one person to do the work that used to take a whole crew of field hands. It was that technology that made it possible for the industrial revolution by freeing up labor from the necessity of producing food and use it towards producing goods in a factory. If you want to know what society would look like if we were worried about all those farmers losing their jobs, look at the amish.

Similarly, the manufacturing industry is going through a change. Fewer people are needed to produce the equivalent amount of goods both through technology and cheaper labor in other countries. We are moving away from a manufacturing based economy, and I think that is good. It is freedom from the necessity of having a large portion of our workforce working in factories that allows them to work elsewhere. The rapid expansion of the internet wouldn't be happening if the founders of Google, Zuckerberg, Thiel or any of the other internet giants grew up with the expectation they would have to work in a factory. 

Why fight that change? So what if China did produce absolutely everything that requires a factory? (Which won't happen because wages in China are rising with the demand, it is cheap now but won't stay that way forever.) Who cares? Some day in the future manufacturing will be done almost 100% by machine. Our labor pool will be free to find other ways to make our lives better, probably in ways we can barely imagine now. Manufactured goods will become cheaper and everyone will live a more comfortable life because of it. This is a change we should embrace, particularly since working in a factory is miserable, dangerous and stressful on your body. Really, how many parents out there raise their kids telling them to dream of working in a factory when they grow up?

The industrial age for our economy is on its way out. Today the most valuable commodity is information and if you want to make serious money, being a collector and distributor of information is a good place to be. Eventually, information will be distributed so easily and cheaply that human labor won't be needed there either and something else will take its place. What? I have no clue, now you're treading into sci-fi futuristic guesses. I'm hoping interstellar space travel but I'm afraid that won't come before I die.