When one does a study of some of the most effective salespeople, one often encounters a mixed bag of ethically questionable tactics. One extremely successful car salesman would sit down with a phone book, call people and tell them their new car was ready for pickup. When people inevitably said, “I didn’t order a car,” he would profusely apologize and then immediately segue into asking them if they were at all in the market for a new car. With this approach, he made a fortune and set the world record at the time for most non-fleet sales made by a car salesman “one customer at a time.” Now to his credit, he was extremely likable, attentive, thorough, and did great customer service, sent birthday cards to his customers, etc. Nevertheless, a lot of his success was predicated on a lie and deception. What is Creator’s perspective?

Here is another example in the shades of grey represented by self-interest versus being in balance where people are acting through free will. So this dilemma, of needing to make a living, is one of the hallmarks of the adversity you face in the physical realm as a human being. This creates quite an important imperative and people find themselves many times in situations where they will make a basic compromise of some kind in order to stay afloat economically. There are many such compromises in all of society, in all of commerce. In essence, the competition creates a setting where people are forced to participate in one scheme or another to get money from others. When signing on as an employee, you become an agent of that organization and your work will contribute to their gain, some of which will be shared with you. To the extent it does useful work as a contribution to the broader community, this will be a positive endeavor in all respects. To the extent it represents an enticement, perhaps something trivial or wasteful or empty, it will have lesser value and ultimately become a net negative for those who squandered their resources, because they were enticed to engage in frivolous activities or buying useless products, and it is only later, when they are pinched by budget constraints, that the hole in their wallet becomes a problem. So in this example, persuasion is used to entice people with a reward and, as a change agent, creating that apparent choice, by bringing the subject up and creating that image of the potential customer seeing themselves with a shiny new car, might well be something not healthy in the moment. Much of society is like this, with a relentless advertising inserted in almost every platform conveying information and entertainment. While it can be highly useful to know the array of goods and services in existence, there are many who, in effect, become preyed upon, through persuasion, to make poor choices and get themselves into debt. Much of commerce is set up to exploit such individuals through extension of credit with credit cards charging usurious rates for the privilege of having access to borrowed money. There is wisdom in the biblical saying, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." The principles of caveat emptor, "Let the buyer beware," seeming to absolve the seller or the persuader of responsibility, are a practical solution from one vantage point but they favor those offering goods and services over the consumer who is at a disadvantage when subject to the enticements of persuaders of all kinds hawking their wares and trolling the waters for prey, baiting the hooks with all kinds of offerings. The Law of Karma will see all such conduct as predatory. It might be short of coercion but the false intrusion into people's lives is an overt act and will be seen as a transgression.