Abstract
Originally delivered at a conference of Marxist philosophers in China, this article examines some links, and some tensions, between business ethics and the traditional concerns of Marxism. After discussing the emergence of business ethics as an academic discipline, it explores and attempts to answer two Marxist objections that might be brought against the enterprise of business ethics. The first is that business ethics is impossible because capitalism itself tends to produce greedy, overreaching, and unethical business behavior. The second is that business ethics is irrelevant because focusing on the moral or immoral conduct of individual firms or businesspeople distracts one’s attention from the systemic vices of capitalism. I argue, to the contrary, that, far from being impossible, business requires and indeed presupposes ethics and that for those who share Marx’s hope for a better society, nothing could be more relevant than engaging the debate over corporate social responsibility. In line with this, the article concludes by sketching some considerations favoring corporations’ adopting a broader view of their social and moral responsibilities, one that encompasses more than the pursuit of profit.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bakan J. (2004). The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. New York: Free Press
Berle A. A. Jr., Means G. C. (1932). The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New York: Macmillan
Cascio, W. F.: 2006, ‹Decency Means More than “Always Low Prices”: A Comparison of Costco to Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club’, Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(3) (August 2006)
Cassidy, J.: 2002, ‹The Greed Cycle’, New Yorker, September 23, 2002
Engels, F.: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (available in various editions)
Ferrell, O.C., J. Fraedrich, L. Ferrell (2008) Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, 7th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Friedman, M.: 1970, ‹The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits’, New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970
Goldman Sachs Company: ‹Report’ (July 2007) for the UN Global Compact, Available at www.unglobalcompact.org
‹How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart’, New York Times, July 17, 2005
Marx K. (1976) Capital, Vol. 1. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books
Marx, K.: 1977, The German Ideology in Karl Marx: Selected Works (McLellan, D. (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford)
McKinsey and Company: ‹Report’ (July 2007) for the UN Global Compact, available at www.unglobalcompact.org
Micklethwait, J., Wooldridge A. (2003). The Company. New York: Modern Library
Reich R. B. (2007). Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life. New York: Knopf
Shaw, W. H.: 1978, Marx’s Theory of History (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA); Chinese translation (Chongqing Publishing House, Beijing, 1989)
Shaw W. H. (2008). Business Ethics, 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Shellenbarger, S.: 1999, ‹Workers Leave if Firms Don’t Stick to Values,’ San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, June 27, 1999
Skapinker, M.: 2005, ‹Money Can’t Make You Happy but Being in a Trusted Team Can’, Financial Times, June 1, 2005
‹The 100 Best Companies to Work For’, Fortune, January 23, 2006
‹The Corporate Givers’, Business Week, November 29, 2004
‹The Costco Way’, Business Week, April 12, 2004
Treviňo L. K., Nelson K. A. (2007) Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How to Do It Right, 4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shaw, W.H. Marxism, Business Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility. J Bus Ethics 84, 565–576 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9725-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9725-0