 The Ethics of Payments: Paper, Plastic, or Bitcoin?James Angel () and Douglas McCabe () Journal of Business Ethics, 2015, vol. 132, issue 3, 603-611 Abstract: Individuals and businesses make numerous payments every day. They sometimes have choices about what forms of payment to make or accept, and at other times are effectively forced to use a particular form. Often there is an asymmetric power relationship between payer and payee that raises the issue of whether one side unfairly exploits the other. Is it unethical exploitation for an employer to pay employees with a fee-laden payroll card over other more convenient forms of payment? Does the fee structure of payment networks such as Visa and MasterCard unfairly exploit merchants? The bitcoin payment system is an ethical as well as technological evolution as it was designed to be an electronic payment system that does not rely upon trust. Can an entire payment system like bitcoin be “evil,” as charged by Krugman ( 2013 )? Payment tools as such are ethically neutral, but can be used in an ethical or unethical manner. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Keywords: Financial ethics; Payments; Interchange fees; Debit cards; Credit cards; Payment cards; Scrip; Exploitation; Bitcoin (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:132:y:2015:i:3:p:603-611 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2354-x Access Statistics for this article Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer |
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