Freedom trumps profit: a liberal approach to business ethics

Abstract

Liberalism is denounced by its critics as an ideology that advocates profit seeking and breeds economic crises. Even much of the CSR literature is pitched against liberalism. Liberalism, however, is about freedom much more than profits. It both legitimizes and confines contracting in markets. Specifically, contracts are legitimate if they are based on voluntary consent and thus reflect contractors' freedom. We propose a broad understanding of freedom and derive criteria as guidance for contractors to establish voluntary consent. For illustration, we discuss the example of sweatshops. We suggest that liberalism is a potentially valuable resource in developing CSR theory.

Value creation and CSR

“…Lists vary, but most lists would include basic values such as freedom, fairness, environmental sustainability, economic welfare, contract-keeping and human dignity. Freedom stands as an impressive member of this list, but even ardent defenders of freedom’s intrinsic status allow that values such as health care, science, art and culture must ultimately be reconciled with freedom (Ostermaier and Van Aaken 2020 ). Intrinsic values are also “synoptic,” which is to say that their meaning must be adjusted in the context of other intrinsic values.…”