Their growth is amazing. Q3 2015 revenue up 78% YoY
Yes, the Top Gear crew will make you profits.
But is it morally okay to hire someone who just got fired for punching their director? Isn’t that rewarding horrible behaviour?
EDIT: Please explain why you disagree in a comment – I’d love to hear other opinions.
And he wasn't fired the BBC didn't take up a new contract at least in part due to lobbying by other media owners who don't like the BBC having a hit show.
Additionally is it fair that James may and Richard Hammond and the rest of the TG crew lost their jobs
And he was fired – the BBC instantly suspended the show and stopped even broadcasting all further recorded episodes. That’s as "fired" as it gets.
And it was not that the assistant producer "screwed up", it was that Clarkson insisted they would stay longer out, then they came so late to the Hotel that the hotel had no warm food anymore, and then Clarkson punched the assistant producer.
And how is this behaviour rewarded? With a raise.
(And the "that other group is behaving immoral, so I should too" defense is in no way relevant)
I’d argue that this – he’s now in ads on every TV channel, every website – is even encouraging people to be more assholes.
Society should discourage people acting as assholes, and this seems like it does the opposite.
To the point: companies like Amazon or Comcast != most businesses. They're extreme outliers to put it mildly. Further, Amazon treats its customers extraordinarily well, and operates morally by its customers, which protects their reputation where they believe it counts.
Try opening a small business and aggressively screwing over your customers. You'll quickly discover how business and morality go together. The only time that isn't true, is when a business is protected by scale (which means it'll take longer for their business to collapse), or protected by government-enforced monopoly.
I know plenty of scummy small businesses
If a business can get away with something and profit, they won't do it. See how I just claimed the opposite without any proof?
Saying you know plenty of scummy small businesses doesn't mean more than even a small fraction of small businesses are in fact scummy.
I know very few scummy small businesses. <- That's a meaningless statement and it's true. I'll argue that most businesses, and most people in general, are neither scummy nor looking to steal from, rip off, or otherwise defraud other people. The opposite position requires that one believe most people are bad, which is blatantly not true (if it were, civilization would be impossible).
Of course civilisation can exist with scummy businesses. I would say civilisation couldn't exist without companies seeking self interest.
In Amazon's case, I know they go out of their way to treat employees well only because they need to. This makes sense, especially for a company that sells things online when ecommerce wasn't nearly as common, and so they had to convince people that buying online was safe and as easy as buying in person.
On the other hand, if companies were actually concerned with morals in and of itself, they would do things morally right that don't benefit them.
Using Amazon again as an example, did you know AmazonSmile is a thing? I mean, it's really great. But, if a company were solely concerned with charity, AmazonSmile wouldn't be a thing; instead they would just automatically donate for everyone. It's a thing because it means that only the people who know about it and care about donating to charity will use it, and their profits will only be lower for people who care about giving to charity.
Anyway, what I am trying to say is, do companies care about morals? Unless they are run by very nice people, no. For the most part, they only care about morals to the extent that it benefits them. Companies are just run by people, and I wouldn't even argue that most people have particularly strong moral values.
However just because you made a mistake doesn't preclude you from working for the rest of your life. And he's certainly worth the money for his following and trailblazing he's done in the industry, that doesn't go away because of a single incident.
I know, it’s necessary for society to accept that everyone makes mistakes, and that everyone can change, but then the person actually has to use that chance and has to change. Just continuing business as usual is problematic.
(I wonder if a court could have sentenced him to a stress-management course?)
Companies arnt paternal entities delivering justice and fairness
I think what you're looking for is criminal charges for his actions but it looks like the other guy didn't choose to file them nor did any prosecutor so that's that.