People who read this blog regularly could be forgiven for thinking that I'm against capitalism given the number of companies I attack and my cynicism towards corporate motives. However, if you think that you would be wrong. I'm very pro-business, so long as it is an ethical business. Unfortunately there are too manyEnrons and Worldcoms in the business world. By no means are they the majority but they aer a very visible and hurtful minority.

I will venture an opinion though. The larger a public company becomes the more unethical it is likely to be. This is for no other reason than the need to continuously drive shareholder value up This will lead to companies to, demand changes to legislation that deny or lower worker rights, remove environmental protections, or provide protection against lawsuits aimed at their own incompetence. It leads them to accounting practices such as we have seen with Enron and Worldcomm as well as others. Privately owned companies are far less susceptible to those pressures. I would hazard a guess that in well established (as opposed to fly by night) companies the incidence of unethical behaviour is far less in private companies ciompared to public.

American Apparel is one company that is fast becoming large and is acting in a most ethical manner in an industry famous for its unethical practices. Hopefully more corporations will look at American Apparel LLC and take a lesson or two on how to behave from Dov Charney.

note: Edited April 12, 2004 to remove a link to a MacLeans Magazine article that is no longer publicly accessible.