110 SITUATING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
It would seem that at least some proportion of the difference between the
cost of production (including the labour) and the price that the capitalist
obtains for the produced commodity is deserved by the capitalist. (It remains
an open question what that proportion might be.) Interestingly reasons such
as the ones given above were to be found amongst the writings of the medi-
aeval schoolmen. Aquinas, for instance, in justifying a moderate profit for
merchants insisted on the essential utility of merchants to society, since they
distributed goods from areas of abundance to regions of deficiency. Aquinas
thought of profit as a stipend for labour (Baldwin 1959: 67). In Aquinas’ work,
factors of transportation, care, and risk were connected with the fundamental
factors of labour and expenses as economic sources that morally justified
the profit of a merchant. What underpinned Aquinas’ acceptance of the idea
of a moderate profit was his focus on themotivesof the commercial agent.
Moderate commercial behaviour, when oriented towards the maintenance of
house and home, was morally permissible and even ‘praiseworthy’ (Aquinas
1963: 2a–2ae, q. 77, a. 4). The pursuit of profit becomes morally objectionable
when it is pursued as an end in itself. The important point though is that
Aquinas allowed that the difference between the cost of production and the
price charged for a commodity could be justified as a reward for the busi-
nessman. It is somewhat ironic then that Tawney (famously) labelled Marx
the last of the schoolmen since in this regard at least he does not follow their
‘motivationalist’ approach that allows for the idea of morally legitimate profit.
What might then be concluded? First, on the arguments presented here
not all profit can be condemned as exploitative and, if this is true, it follows
that an ethics of HRM becomes at the very least possible. However, that said,
we should not thereby conclude that questions of exploitation and immoral
pursuit of profit are entirely redundant. The socialist and Marxist canon picks
up on a structural feature of work in the marketplace that presents moral
hazards for employers. To be more specific, employers are in a situation where
they can increase their profit by radically forcing down wages (or related
conditions) and in so doing trampling on the well-being of their employees.
In focusing on the different interests of the employer and the employee here
the socialist isolates a morally salient feature of work in a market economy,
that is, the temptation for employers to exploit employees.
Given that we do not reject profit altogether as morally inadmissible, then
the pivotal intellectual task is to determine what would count as a fair or just
profit. How might we do so? One approach would be to determine an actual
proportion or rate of profit that is fair. One might model the approach on the
ancient Roman practice of lending at interest which designated 12 per cent per
annum as the fair rate of return.
I want to adopt an alternative approach that focuses on the motivations
which underpin the pursuit of profit. Significantly, I think that we can distin-
guish between three distinct ways of pursuing profit. Consider the following