Kennedy Butler
EEE-2083
16 November 2022
Discussion Paper 10- Poverty Inc.
What do you think when you think of the state of the world? Is it good or bad? Somewhere in between? What part do you think entrepreneurs play on this global scale? ARe they helpful or harmful? In the documentary film, Poverty Inc., the focal point is on charity and the idea of the hidden good behind it. In our world today, there is so much hurt and so much damage and throughout the interviews of this film, we get a small glimpse into that. The company I enjoyed learning about throughout this documentary is TOM shoes. I was already familiar with the concept of them giving away shoes, and I even owned a few pairs back in the day, but this furthered my knowledge on the subject matter. Something I found interesting, and I will talk about it further as society stifles entrepreneurship in this realm, is that some companies actually get a bad rap from their charitable efforts. There seems to be this view of hierarchy in some cases and it honestly has the opposite effect than what the company portrays.
On the positive side of this topic, this aspect of entrepreneurship affects society in the way that, while the entrepreneur is passionate and wishes for profits, they also are driven by the passion of helping society and creating a better well-being for the world around them, their homes and the people they love. Society has seen relief and help from entrepreneurs many times and this has ultimately led to better lives for millions of individuals all around the world. However, there seems to be a bit of an underlying issue here. While many entrepreneurs and businesses are socially responsible and have relief in mind, other times, it seems that the entrepreneur can almost make themselves seem like the hero or protagonist, creating an image of them helping when the result often is the entrepreneur getting rich and poor being left in the same harmful state. So, society can definitely stifle this aspect of entrepreneurship. But is it even bad that a bit of stifle is present in this sense? In addition, the interaction between this aspect of entrepreneurship and society varies depending on the company and the entrepreneur and their motives behind wanting to “help”. Sometimes the interaction, like that of TOMS, is positive and brings good to others while becoming a successful startup and generating profit. By generating more profit, the company can donate more shoes, so everyone wins! However, like I have mentioned briefly, this is not the case for every business. Some might be more self and inward focused and just use social responsibility as a way to market and draw in more consumers of a different target market. It is sick, but sadly it does happen. So how does society handle it? Well there is probably no way to make it go away permanently, but it raises awareness to the consumer for needing to do research, and shop according to their needs as well as their values and see what companies match both of those. The consumer holds the power, so think of this whenever you empower an entrepreneur.
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