As a business student, I’ve always felt that "big business" gets a bad rap in popular culture. Evil Corporation X is a common choice of antagonist in small independent movies to mega summer blockbusters alike. Comic book villains like Lex Luthor portray businessmen as shady, ethically deficient people in organizations that are willing to turn a blind eye to questionable and in some cases blatantly illegal activity in order to get want they want. Sometimes it's money, other times it's power, but the end result is always bad for us. The little guy.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not blind to the shortcomings of business. Capitalism is something that is inherently immoral in the traditional sense. It’s an economic system that is based on greed. All for-profit businesses exist in this world to maximize profit. They could be selling youbags of sugar or stocks on the stock exchange butthe end goal is still the same: money. That’s what business is all about. But really, it’s a good thing for us. If we the consumers have a demand for a product, then a company will appear to fill that demand. Then more companies will try selling it, too, driving down the price and helping us in the long run.
However, recent events have started to reveal some of the darker sides to a profit-driven system. Mylan recently raised the price of EpiPen, its lifesaving allergy drug, to $608 for two pens, which is a 548 percent increase from the price of the drug in 2007. And this is only a single case in a series of price hikes in the pharmaceutical industry that have caused a public outcry. And I can’t say I blame them. When business goes bad in real life, it’s really bad.