1). Astor’s motive and managerial ability are without equal. Astor may have ended his life rich, but he started out poor and hungry as a child of a butcher in Waldorf Germany. With nothing but motivation and determination he worked his way to the Americas and started working at a bakery, saving what he could to work the fur circuits. It was through his motivation for wealth that he started his fur empire, but his managerial skills that let him maintain it. Many times Astor was thrown a curve ball and when it came at him he managed to hit a homerun. This is seen when Astor had to sell Astoria, his fur empire on the pacific coast, for a fraction of its worth to the British. It was through Astor’s managerial ability that he got congress to forbid foreign fur trading in the US. After doing this he bought out their interests and his monopoly was born. As for Astor’s ethics, they were towards money and not towards fair treatment. The US congress passed a law that the Indian’s were not to bet taken advantage of, Astor did not adhere to these rules but instead traded low price trinkets for high value furs making a 4,900 percent profit to which 99.9 percent of it went to himself. Another example of Astor’s lack of ethics is when he let the Indians use credit so that they would be in debt to him and they would not be able buy from any other sellers. Astor’s career shows that there is no relation between virtue and success, his lesson would have to be (don’t let virtue get in the way of success). This is the way he lived his life as a businessman, on many occasions he bribed federal officials in charge of enforcing fur trade laws.

2). In the 1830’s the consensus seems to be against the fur trade industry, I believe that Astor may have pushed to hard. As we said in class people will only take so much abuse before they revolt. People were exterminating beavers for the hopes that Astor would find their area unprofitable. A Historical force had been implicated being the worldwide small pox epidemic because many people believed the disease was spread on transported beaver furs. Beaver pelts became only worth half as much as they were three years earlier.

3). The effect on the business environment
Economical- it made 99.9 percent profits
Cultural- it helped destroy the Native American culture
Technological- it showed that sanitation is curtail because starting a plague will cripple any company
Natural- it destroyed the mountain life and drastically decreased the beaver population
Governmental- it showed that the government could be manipulated/bribed
Legal- it showed that the law could be avoided
Internal- it supported the idea that poor working conditions didn’t effect profitability and progress

4). The Indians have to be the most important stakeholder, they were used to trap, skin, and clean the animal pelts, without them the fur industry fails. They were doing a job no one ells would do for the pay or conditions in which they were treated. By any day’s standards the Indians were taken advantage of and in many cases to the point of being drugged into agreements. Even though this kind of behavior in business is irresponsible, the richer man is still taking advantage of the workingman to this day.

5). I believe that AFC ‘s legacy is predominantly negative with some positive impacts. The negative being that; unethical behavior is fine as long as one has enough money to pay off the right people, or taking advantage of the naive is acceptable when the profits a substantial. Some positive has come from the whole AFC event, since it is a model for unethical behavior I think it has been used as an example to learn from and that new laws were created from it.

6). Absolutely, It shows that as the business environment changes i.e. (technology, economy, government, etc.) so do the laws that enforce and govern business ethics. Another thing it points out is when flaws are found in the system it is important to change the system accordingly.

7). I Believe that the Dominance model relates directly to the story and this era being that it’s the belief that corporations and a powerful elite control a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many. Astor gained all of his wealth for virtually himself at the expense of many.