The Basic Responsibility of a Business Firm Towards its Customers

This paper examines several basic principles that have been put forward to regulate the responsibilities of business firms towards their customers. The principles examined include enlightened egoism, consumer sovereignty, optimization of the customer’s satisfaction and paternalism. The paper shows how none of these principles is fully satisfactory. The paper concludes by proposing a principle of real service/mutuality. This principle states that the basic responsibility of a firm towards its clients is that of providing them with goods and services which are effectively capable of contributing to their well-being and personal advancement, within the framework of a mutually beneficial interchange