Edit: Also you can be ethical.
A successful and competent employee has built relationships with colleagues, supervisors, and reports. He knows them, and they know him. He won't be asked to subjugate his principles to the company in an inappropriate way, in part because others know that he will go above and beyond within his principles to do well for the company.
For a business owner, the exact same thing, just replace colleagues et al with customers, suppliers, shareholders, and other partners.
On the other hand, a weak business and/or business owner will be very vulnerable to principle-based compromise. Out of the need to keep customers, suppliers, et al happy, he is subject to whim and every demand. Walking away from his business means the collapse of his reputation, failing his employees, and failing his family. He is no more free than your average entry level employee.
I respectfully disagree. Your team may not, your direct reports won't and your management hierarchy may not, however, your business will. If you have certain principles such as support for LBGTQ+, anti-military contracts, or a conservative in tech for example, and your company signs a contract to work with another organization that doesn't care about the cause or are completely against it, what happens? I know CEO's who can't fire bad clients because they don't own their own company.
>Walking away from his business means the collapse of his reputation, failing his employees, and failing his family.
Walking away from bad business can make you so much money it's hard to imagine. I've had conversations about doing business with shady people, which resulted in me making a deal with the person who had the same experience with the other individual.
>On the other hand, a weak business and/or business owner will be very vulnerable to principle-based compromise.
Growing pains, but an employee who is competent or incompetent will face the same dilemma because of what I suggested earlier.
I call it being a slave earlier, to intentionally raise alarm. I don't know of a way to define it but you don't have to go to sleep at night thinking, well, I didn't like that decision and now I need to change my entire life or deal with it. I.e. find a new job, change my commute, change my schedule, acquaint yourself with a new environment, meet new people and so on. An owner, is doing this on a daily basis already.
I guess things are changing, but historically refusing to serve customers based on political differences would be considered intolerant. You can disagree with someone without refusing them service. I don't see any ethical dilemmas in serving someone you disagree with. You are free to disagree with that principle.
For any business owner, making a decision to walk away from business on grounds of political disagreement is a huge luxury. I don't think it's commonly exercised, and for good reason, imo. This is very different from walking away from a "bad customer", one who may cost you money over the long run while sapping your soul. Empowered employees also feel capable of walking away from these customers because they understand the business so well that they see the issues coming, and they've earned to decision making respect for their choices to have weight.
> Growing pains, but an employee who is competent or incompetent will face the same dilemma because of what I suggested earlier.
This is exactly what I'm saying. The two are more similar than I think most people make them out to be. You will have differences in freedom, but those are often determined by your competence and success, more so than whether you have a business license.
The way you talk about a business owner sleeping well at night makes me wonder if you know any. Owning a business is extremely stressful. The buck stops with you, and while in theory you are free, your entire business depends on your decisions. You think it's hard to change jobs? How hard do you think it is to move on from a failed business? In a capitalist society, business owners are as much slaves as anyone else. The difference is, you take so much risk on that if you succeed, you end up making a return that does buy you a good deal of freedom. But that's not intrinsic to the business you own, and it is determined as much but what you need as what you have. It's a freedom derived from being a human being that has "enough".
