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Business and Economics Ethics
Rich, Arthur Enderle, Georges
Rich, Arthur
Enderle, Georges
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Abstract
"This book is a fundamental and unique masterpiece which reflects the discussions on business and economic ethics over decades in German-speaking countries, and does so by systematically developing an Ethics of Economic Systems from a Christian-theological perspective with a firm foundation in the western philosophical and economic literature. Neither in German-speaking countries nor English-speaking regions has this complex theme been dealt with in such a com-prehensive and thorough manner. Ethics is a matter of doing justice to the human without twisting the facts and ignoring the constraints. The study introduces seven criteria of human justice, that fundamentally relate to the Christian revelation and, at the same time, establish a humanistic and universal approach. Subsequently it focuses on the concrete economic systems and their problems. It describes and analyses various models of market and centrally-planned economies, and evaluates them in the light of middle-level principles, which are informed by both ethical criteria and economic knowledge. Thus the most legitimate economic system is the one which offers the most potential for reforms and self-critique. The merits of this approach are considerable: if the system of the market economy has the advantage of being thoroughly reformable, it also requires regulations which are equitable and responsible. In this view, one better understands the inescapable failure of Marxism but also the ethical ramifications of savage deregulations.(pg 1) After the fall of the Berlin wall and shortly before his death, Arthur Rich, in his self-critical and self-effacing way, asked me if his second volume of Business and Economic Ethics hadn’t appeared too late. Despite serious ailment, he had worked very hard during his entire retirement age to complete his 650-page work. But then, the triumph of capitalism seemed to have answered the question of the ethics of economic systems once and for all. The answer I gave him at that time, that it wasn’t too late indeed, has been confirmed and even more validated today, given the dramatic and continued socio-economic changes in many countries and at the global level as well. In the following I would like to emphasize several concerns elaborated in depth by Rich, but widely neglected by mainstream business ethics: the mediation of ethical reasoning and economic rationality, the contribution of Christian theology to business ethics, his focus on the ethics of economic systems and orders, and his development of maxims or guidelines for advanc-ing the market economy at the national and global levels to become more just in human and environmental terms.(pg 2)
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Preprint
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2006
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With permission of the license/copyright holder