Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Although the world of business is continually changing, some things in business seem to have stayed more or less the same for as far back as one might care to look. One is the desire to make a profit. Another is concern about ethics in business. From the code of Hammurabi to the latest issue of The Wall Street Journal , the record shows that worries about greedy, deceptive, and unjust business practices are common. Whether it be in Mesopotamia or Manhattan, there have always been people who tried to make a dishonest buck, and there have always been other people who complained loudly about it. This is vaguely comforting in an odd sort of way, maybe because it is reassuring to know that there are some constants in human nature. It is worth noting, however, that even though the unethical business practices people worry about have remained very much the same over the years, the concerns they have had about those practices come in at least two distinct varieties. These two different kinds of concerns derive, in turn, from two different traditions regarding the essential nature or character of business. The first tradition, which is foreshadowed in the writings of Aristotle and reaches its ultimate expression in Marx and his contemporary heirs, takes business to be an inherently unethical activity. As Aristotle puts it, retail trade is “justly censured” and “unnatural.” For Marx, the ... log in or subscribe to read full text