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Throughout our timeline making profits has been the very initial objective of business. It was used for businessmen to cover their services cost of linking different people together and to make an acceptable level of profits. The whole atmosphere used to be very peaceful and harmonic.
In the past, instead of using cash money, business transactions were done using commodity money as the medium of exchange. Commodity money’s value comes from the initial value of the good itself. Examples of commodities that have been used are gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, large stones, decorated belts, shells, barley and etc. However, as the time passed, money-minded businessmen started to exploit the business world by putting their own interests before others. As an example China’s firecrackers were invented for the sake of celebration, but English Businessmen managed to alter it to weapons, so that it could be sold to the war lords.
In our current fiat money system, our paper money is no longer backed by physical commodity. The money itself is valued by the government fiat, enforcing legal tender laws. Unlike commodity money, fiat money is intrinsically worthless and relies on the government to maintain its value. If the government prints too much to stimulate or to pay their debts, inflation will occur. Nowadays, people start to believe that greed and selfishness should be part of human nature. Business is no longer implemented like how it used to be. Businessmen are willing to destroy each other for the sake of profits. Companies are willing to kill each other for the sake of survival. In school, instead of learning about cooperation, we learn about individualism. Discussion is known as plagiarism. In our business-related subjects, we do not learn about cooperation. In fact, we learn about monopolizing the market, owning our competitors, or even using “marketing strategy” to mislead our consumers.
Therefore, in order to enhance world peace through international business, we have to put our selfishness behind us by inventing a sustainable trading system where Multinational companies can operate alongside each other. To facilitate such a view countries have to remove their boundaries to foreign companies so the most efficient and productive business survives. This will promote more choices for the consumers and demolish monopolization. However we should discourage destructive comparison.
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Well, after read through the theme explanation, hope all the International Business Students will be more understand the meaning of our IB event theme, thank you.
