Commercial businesses like to call their clients "God" and label all their sales tricks with the slogan "You are sure of our sincere service". Beware! Never regard yourself as a "God". For, in the minds of many business owners, nothing but the money in your wallet is their true "God".

Last Friday, a restaurant in Hebei Province staged an event to celebrate its one-year anniversary. It fired banknotes worth 2,000-yuan ($263) into the air using an electronic cannon¹ to lure² public attention. Passersby³ competed with each other to grab the money in a glaring demonstration⁴ of greed. Fortunately there were no stampede.

A week earlier, a Carrefour outlet⁵ in Chongqing sold edible⁶ oil at a big discount in a sales promotion⁷ drive. Three customers died and 31 were injured in a stampede triggered by the sales.

In these two incidents, the businesses pursued profits by allegedly disregarding human dignity. Cheap sales causing stampedes and fatalities⁸ have occurred in the past in other places and local governments (including Chongqing) had issued notices banning such sales.

The Chongqing Carrefour, however, apparently⁹ carried out its sales in disregard of the possible tragic¹⁰ consequences, though it arranged for security guards to "keep order".

In the Hebei incident, the restaurant took precautionary measures in advance. But it used a trivial amount of money to lure people into a show of greed and loss of human dignity.

Listen to what a manager of the restaurant said: "Firing money into the air symbolized¹¹ 'Heaven' showering luck" and was meant to create "an atmosphere of flourishing patronage¹²".

This fully¹³ reveals the mentality¹⁴ of the restaurant's owners - they were the "Heaven" doling¹⁵ out alms to the public, who were merely stage props¹⁶ in a farce¹⁷ staged to gain business blessings¹⁸.

In similar cases where people scramble¹⁹ for cheap handouts²⁰ or loot goods from overturned vehicles (as in highway accidents), critics often accuse these people of coveting²¹ small gains and associate their behavior with the "low quality of civilization" among the Chinese populace.

These people are mostly common folk, who treasure every penny, given their poor livelihood²². In fact, greed is a subconscious²³ element in human nature. Are not business people greedy?

Their greed, once released unbridled, would go even farther than what the populace would demonstrate. The only difference is that common people's greed manifests itself at a superficial level while business people and corrupt²⁴ officials hide their avarice²⁵ deeper in their hearts and appease²⁶ it in a wiser manner.

An ancient Chinese saying states: "All men love wealth but a civilized²⁷ man obtains it through legal means and within moral limits." Common people involved in the two cases certainly need to improve their overall standards with regard to civilization. The business owners in the cases are more in need of moral revamping.

Making use of common people's involuntary appetite for small gains to boost business opportunities and potential profits, and enjoying seeing customers, mostly senior citizens, scrambling²⁸ for a limited amount of money is even more disgusting, for it represents a rape²⁹ of human dignity.