RT Article
T1 Multinational Corporations and the Social Contract
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 31
IS 3
SP 245
OP 258
A1 Palmer, E.
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2001
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1785615939
AB The constitutions of many nations have been explicitly or implicitly founded upon principles of the social contract derived from Thomas Hobbes. The Hobbesian egoism at the base of the contract fairly accurately represents the structure of market enterprise. A contractarian analysis may, then, allow for justified or rationally acceptable universal standards to which businesses should conform. This paper proposes general rational restrictions upon multi-national enterprises, and includes a critique of unjustified restrictions recently proposed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). I propose restrictions that may be tighter than the OECD and international law currently demand, because reason requires that the activities of enterprises accord with standards of environmental and governmental sustainability in addition to consortium, national law and international law agreements. I argue that it is justifiable that indictments may be presented by a citizen or a government against the local arm of a multinational enterprise in response to violations committed by an arm within a different country.
K1 Rational Restriction
K1 Multinational Corporation
K1 Social Contract
K1 Economic Cooperation
K1 Economic Growth
DO 10.1023/A:1010737903028