6

HRM and the ethics of

commodified work in

a market economy

Adrian J. Walsh

The very idea of ethics in marketized workplaces

Work is a central feature of our lives and an area of human activity that
provides genuine possibilities for individual development and flourishing. At
the same time it is a site of great economic and political conflict and, moreover,
for many workers is nothing but drudge, the ‘toad god work’ as the English
poet Philip Larkin once called it.
In the contemporary world, HRM is at the heart of many of the issues that
affect the capacity of work to provide for individual development. Human
resource managers are responsibleinter aliafor recruitment, selection, ori-
entation, performance evaluation, training and development, IR and health,
and safety issues (Boxall and Purcell 2003). As should be patently clear from
this list, HRM is a sphere of activity where many of the central ethical issues
pertaining to employers and employees arise. What kinds of issues are relevant
for HR managers in determining the ethics of work undertaken in the market
context?
The first question that one might legitimately ask here is whether it is
even possible to talk of ethics in a context where market relations are pre-
dominant. One might argue, for instance, that market relations involve an
unconscionable commodification of human relations. Things have either a
price or a dignity and in so far as work (and workers) becomes commodified,
it is stripped of all dignity. Alternatively, one might argue—perhaps along
Marxist lines—that profit is necessarily exploitative and therefore the pursuit
of profit can never be morally justified. The upshot of these lines of reasoning
is that ethics at work within capitalism is impossible and if this is true, then a
fortiori an ethical HRM is also an impossibility.
Herein I suggest that such objections, although containing important
insights, are too strong. In defence of thevery idea of ethicsin the workplace
I argue that, although work in a market economy can be exploitative and
can lead to commodifying modes of regard, it need not necessarily be so. In