Postscript

Business can play a major role in establishing strong ethical principles, but cannot do so in isolation from the rest of society. This extends to the impact of business being able to assist in reducing poverty and promoting equality of opportunity. There are well recorded instances of poor decision making, plainly unethical actions, and abuse of communities by businesses.There are two issues which are poorly understood but vitally important in the ethical position of business: the methodology of investment decisions, and the extent of the reliance of business on the rule of law. The well established and almost globally used financial principles relating to investment decisions — by institutional investors and by companies — are in themselves consistent with the ethical duties on companies, and in fact provide a foundation for business to be a proponent of strong ethical values, especially equality and justice.The ethical duties of a company and its shareholders to governments are profound. A large company cannot operate and grow without the benefit of stability, a range of social goods — for example education — and the preservation of contract law and limited liability. This has profound consequences from both a utilitarian and deontological perspective.This book has argued that globalisation and the internet have not just fundamentally changed government, but have fundamentally changed relations between the multinational company and governments, individually and internationally.