Activist Business Ethics

“The truth can wait, for it lives a long life” (Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, 1788-1860) The philosopher Schopenhauer believed in the eventual triumph of truth, despite the disappointments engendered by his indifferent contemporaries. Two centuries later, we live in a time of accelerated changes, and we do not have the long life to wait for the truth. Activist business ethics, business ethics with a more activist militant approach, is needed in order to remedy the wrongdoing committed to the stakeholders and minority shareholders. This will be achieved by cooperation between ethical businessmen and businesswomen, activist academics and associations of stakeholders and minority shareholders. We should treat others as we would want them to treat us, not through interest, but by conviction. Yet this principle is not the guideline of many companies in the modern business world, although most of religions and philosophers have preconized it in the last 3,000 years. How could we convince or compel modern business to apply this principle and is it essential to the success of economy? In order to answer these questions this book examines the evolution of activist business ethics in business, democracies, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and other religions, as well as in philosophy, psychology and psychoanalysis. The book examines international aspects, the personification of stakeholders, the predominance of values and ethics for CEOs and the inefficient safeguards of the stakeholders’ interests.