Multinational Corporations and the Social Contract

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...

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Détails bibliographiques
Publié dans:Journal of business ethics
Auteur principal: Palmer, E. (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2001
Dans: Journal of business ethics
Sujets non-standardisés:B Multinational Corporation
B Social Contract
B Economic Cooperation
B Economic Growth
B Rational Restriction
Accès en ligne: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Description
Résumé: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.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1023/A:1010737903028