Ethical Reflection On Labor-capital Relation In Contemporary China's Private Enterprises

Since the reform started, China's private enterprises have been developing rapidly and have been playing an important role in China's economic construction and social development. With the fast development of the private enterprises, the issue of labor-capital relation, an important economic relation in the enterprise has emerged remarkably. The harmony of the labor-capital relation not only affects the wholesome development of the enterprise itself, but also affects that of the social economic and even the harmony and stability of the society. As a result of an incomplete socialist market system, an imbalance of efficiency-fairness relation and a serious supply over demand in labor force market, inharmoniousness of labor-capital has occurred in private enterprises, which leads to frictions and conflicts. Therefore, how to establish rapport in private enterprises becomes a most urgent issue, which involves such subjects as Economics, Management, Law and Ethics and so on. In the perspective of Ethics, the labor-capital relation ethics is an important part of economic ethics and management ethics,so the study of the issue of labor-capital relation would be significant to Applied Ethics both in theory and practice.In addition to a sort of economic and legal relation, the labor-capital relation with a profound ethical implication is an ethical relation. The labor-capital ethics has more special features than those common to the general ethics. This paper employs a combination of several analysis approaches including logics, positive study. Based on the basic implications of the labor-capital relation and ethics, I define the labor-capital relation and labor-capital ethics, disclose the special traits of the relationship between labor and capital parties and the ethical principles, analyze the existing problems in the labor-capital relation in contemporary China's private enterprises. After analyzing ethically, I discuss the necessity of building up a harmonious labor-capital relation and come up with some proposals as to how to construct a harmonious relation between the labor and the capital.In the paper, I deal with the issue as the following.Firstly, I discuss the meaning and features of the labor-capital relation and the ethics of labor-capital relation, pointing out that interest is the essence of the relation and its obvious utilitarianism. Logically, the labor-capital relation has the following six ethical principles: Justice and fairness, honesty and trustworthiness, uniting righteousness and benefit , rights and obligations, equality and respect ,and human-being-centered. The private enterprises must adhere to the above principles and put ethics in its full play in adjusting people's behaviors and coordinating the interest relationship, thus inspiring the enthusiasm of the employees.Secondly, I point out the characteristics of the labor-capital relation in contemporary China and explore its causes. I reveal five ethical problems existing in the relation, which are confronting interests, inequality of rights and obligations, lack of honesty, unfairness and injustice, lack of humanitarianism and so on. To close this part, I discuss the immediate and indirect causes.Thirdly, I discuss the necessity and possible methods to build up the harmonious labor-capital relation in contemporary China. I point out that, to construct a harmonious relation between labor and capital, we must be guided by the approach of scientific development, which is people-centered, and must improve moral standards and supersion mechanism, and must combine legal and moral measures with each other, must raise the employers'social responsibility and the employees'awareness of self-protection, must strengthen both parties'moral quality. This is the way to a rapport of the labor-capital relation.Despite the difficulties, the problems would be able to be worked out and the private enterprises would get out of the trouble as long as the governments and the society as a whole provide guidance and support. The rapport of the labor-capital relation will gain competitive edge for China's private enterprises.