Human Rights and Business Ethics: Fashioning a New Social Contract
This paper argues that widely accepted understanding of the respective responsibilities of business and government in the post war industrialized world can be traced back to a tacit “social contract” that emerged following the second world war. The effect of this contract was to assign responsibilit...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
2000
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| In: |
Journal of business ethics
Year: 2000, Volume: 27, Issue: 1, Pages: 205-214 |
| Further subjects: | B
Ethics
B Social Contract B Corporate social responsibility B U.N. Declaraton of Human Rights B Government B Globalization B Human Rights |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This paper argues that widely accepted understanding of the respective responsibilities of business and government in the post war industrialized world can be traced back to a tacit “social contract” that emerged following the second world war. The effect of this contract was to assign responsibility for generating wealth to business and responsibility for ensuring the equitable sharing of wealth to governments. Without question, this arrangement has resulted in substantial improvements in the quality of life in the industrialized world in the intervening period. I argue that with advance of economic globalization and the growing power and influence of multi national corporations, this division of responsibilities is not longer viable or defensible. What is needed, fifty years after the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, is a new social contract that shares responsibilities for human rights and related ethical responsibilities in a manner more in keeping with the vision captured by the post war Declaration. I conclude by suggesting some reasons for thinking that a new social contract may be emerging. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0697 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1023/A:1006488202305 |