Competitor Group Ends Elite Support (Read 613 times)

 

I'm not Jeff, but I've got this.  It's kind of like the diner that has the sign out front "Eat here even if it kills you, we need the business".  To justify the existence of the company, they have to provide a product or service that people actually want and are willing to pay for first.  Then they need to figure out a way to make money at it.  I'm not going to eat at a diner that sucks just so they can make money.

I'm not Jeff either, but I often pretend to be him on "Be Jeff" Tuesdays.

Okay, I get what you're saying. If they don't sell a product/service that is quality or no one ail buy, then that will be their demise. Many of these race companies have passed my price point, and I'm not willing to pay. Not when there are good races out there for half the price.

Perhaps, that's what Jeff (who you or I am not) meant as well.

I'm just speaking about the bottom-line aspect of business. That these runners were just a line-item to them that they didn't see as necessary. Now, whether or not it is a mistake on their part, and that will ultimately cost them is open to debate. Personally, I've never run a race because there were going to be elites there, or because Boston Billy was going to be speaking (i actually did hear him speak at a pasta dinner once. I had the pleasure of actually conversing with him once, and we didn't talk about running at all). And I follow elite running to an extent. Maybe the company is in trouble and is cutting expenses, or maybe they did their due dilligence and made a wise business decision, or maybe they didn't and it will hurt them. TIme will tell. I harbor no resentment about their decision and won't boycott them for it. Doesn't mean I'll run their race though---depends on the price.

 

For the most part, if businesses are operating within the law, I'm fine. If they are, then usually that takes care of moral and ethical issues. If they break the law, they deserve swift justice.

 

I don't expect them to be political. I don't expect them to do anything for the community. If they want to get involved in either, then great. Not always a good business decision to back a certain candidate publicly. Once you get into the political arena, there's risk of boycott by the opposition.  It's usually a good business decision to give to local charitable causes.

Okay, this is your take, but it seems really counter-intuitive to me to shield businesses from all ethical social and political criticism and only ask them to justify themselves in relation to the profit motive. Such a strange way of thinking about business needs to be justified from the outset: as you can see by the confusion that your comment caused, most people's intuition is that any action can be analyzed or criticized along these lines, and the fact that it is a business that undertakes ____ action seems to me to be neither here nor there with respect to the moral ethical, social or political consequences of _____ action.

It is also commonly intuitive to separate out legal judgment from moral or ethical or social judgment. To conflate these two things is to make the state the arbiter of all action, and avoidance of that state of affairs is at the core of all liberal institutions.

 

Okay, this is your take, but it seems really counter-intuitive to me to shield businesses from all ethical social and political criticism and only ask them to justify themselves in relation to the profit motive. Such a strange way of thinking about business needs to be justified from the outset: as you can see by the confusion that your comment caused, most people's intuition is that any action can be analyzed or criticized along these lines, and the fact that it is a business that undertakes ____ action seems to me to be neither here nor there with respect to the moral ethical, social or political consequences of _____ action.

 

It is also commonly intuitive to separate out legal judgment from moral or ethical or social judgment. To conflate these two things is to make the state the arbiter of all action, and avoidance of that state of affairs is at the core of all liberal institutions.

What I find is that people criticize business when a business decision affects either their pockets or puts an end to something they personally feel that the business is obligated to do. A business is not morally obligated to keep people employed, give to charity, or in this case, pay for the appearance, hotel, or race fees of a certain class of runners. Individual business owners might feel extra obligation, and I know some that do. They do everything possible to keep their employees, and feel responsible for them. That's a choice.

But if Jane Doe wants to create a house cleaning service, and becomes successful at it, her only obligation is to operate within federal, state, and local business and labor laws, and honor her contracts. It's in the companies best interests to provide a good service for a good price. Why does her company have to be political? Why does it need to get involved in the community? In the case of this running company, why does it have to pay a single dime to an elite? Especially if they've realized it makes them no money, and doesn't do much for their brand image (they might be mistaken--I agree with that point)?

I don't believe just because someone has a successful business that it  is  automatically obligated to give money away to anyone who asks for it. The choice to do so makes certain realities more probable (increased business, perhaps, or even just feeling good), the choice not to do so makes other ones more probable (boycotts , or maybe bad word of mouth like in this thread).

They should pay the "volunteers" minimum wage. How come they get to use volunteers to provide services and yet McDonalds does not?

"Volunteer" is such an imprecise term. Let's call them "fitness industry interns."

Yes. They ask extensive questions. I think it's when you register but I'm not sure. I run a lot of big events and I might be mixing them up. They ask demographic questions (including income level), how often you race (including how many RnR events you've run), your stay in the city (whether you're local or visiting and if visiting how you got here and where you're staying), and to your question how much a variety of things influenced your decision to run the race. I'm guessing elite field was part of that list. (The race sponsors are also on that list. Not sure if they share that information with them or not. I guess I better start lying and say that it does influence me that Mega Bank and Mega Insurance Company are sponsors).

I've never run a RnR "event".  (Dickey's words)

 

Just curious: do they survey their patrons to see which parts of the event appeal to them?

 

Is that how they determined that cutting the elites would be good for the bottom line?

I hear they just found $450,000 they can apply towards that.

They should pay the "volunteers" minimum wage. How come they get to use volunteers to provide services and yet McDonalds does not?

 

What I find is that people criticize business when a business decision affects either their pockets or puts an end to something they personally feel that the business is obligated to do. A business is not morally obligated to keep people employed, give to charity, or in this case, pay for the appearance, hotel, or race fees of a certain class of runners. Individual business owners might feel extra obligation, and I know some that do. They do everything possible to keep their employees, and feel responsible for them. That's a choice.

 

But if Jane Doe wants to create a house cleaning service, and becomes successful at it, her only obligation is to operate within federal, state, and local business and labor laws, and honor her contracts. It's in the companies best interests to provide a good service for a good price. Why does her company have to be political? Why does it need to get involved in the community? In the case of this running company, why does it have to pay a single dime to an elite? Especially if they've realized it makes them no money, and doesn't do much for their brand image (they might be mistaken--I agree with that point)?

 

I don't believe just because someone has a successful business that it  is  automatically obligated to give money away to anyone who asks for it. The choice to do so makes certain realities more probable (increased business, perhaps, or even just feeling good), the choice not to do so makes other ones more probable (boycotts , or maybe bad word of mouth like in this thread).

I don't think any of your questions that you ask here have general answers, but in specific cases, they obviously do. You write as if the laws that govern business interaction just appeared divinely out of the blue. They came into effect by people doing political reasoning around the practices that businesses undertook.

As far as this specific case goes, you write as if no one has offered any reasons why this business "has to pay a single dime to an elite." People have given tons of reasons. If you want to engage with those reasons, you can. But taking a broad stance that says "any reasoning that doesn't come down to profit-motive is irrelevant" is basically just drawing an arbitrary line in the sand. You have yet to justify this line: all you have done is said that you don't believe that businesses should be subject to these sorts of criticisms, and that no one who has any complaint about a business practice that can't talk about the way in which that complaint furthers the bottom line of the business is automatically unjustified.

Anyways, this is obviously a tangent, and really I just want to say that it's illegitimate to disqualify arguments from the get go if they don't refer to the profit motive. Arguments have to be disqualified on their own terms -- and it's definitely legitimate to use the argument that if business X adopts practice Y, they will no longer be able to make a profit as a disqualifying argument. But to attempt to reduce all arguments to this form is to severely handicap intelligence.