Business Ethics

“What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” — text and audio versions

6 Comments / Business Ethics, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Ethics /

My short essay on “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” [pdf] was published in the Journal of Private Enterprise in 2009, just when entrepreneurism was beginning to get attention in the business ethics literature. The abstract: “Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic phenomenon. It has, however, received less attention as […]

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Entrepreneurial Living: 15 Stories of Innovation, Risk, and Achievement (and One Story of Abject Failure)

Leave a Comment / Business Ethics, Entrepreneurship /

Entrepreneurial Living, edited by Stephen R. C. Hicks and Jennifer Harrolle. In this volume of interviews with entrepreneurs from six countries and seven U.S. states, we explore the adventure—and the hard-headedness—of business. What makes for entrepreneurial success—and failure? To what extent is flourishing a matter of ideas, or of key decisions, or of persistent action,

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War metaphors and trade — Bastiat

2 Comments / Business, Business Ethics, Economics, Politics /

A flotilla of ships is approaching your shore. Does it matter to you whether they are carrying smartphones and shoes — or rockets and soldiers? In his Economic Sophisms, Frédéric Bastiat makes this exasperated point: “A French ironmaster says: ‘We must protect ourselves from the invasion of English iron!’ An English landlord cries: ‘We must

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Lo que la Ética Empresarial Puede Aprender del Emprendimiento

Leave a Comment / Business Ethics, Entrepreneurship /

“Lo que la Ética Empresarial Puede Aprender del Emprendimiento.” [HTML] [PDF]Stephen R.C. HicksDepartamento de Filosofía y Centro para la Ética y el EmprendimientoRockford University, Illinois, USA Publicado por primera vez en The Journal of Private Enterprise 24(2), 2009, 49-57.Traducido al Español por Walter Jerusalinsky, Idóneos, 2013. Resumen: El emprendimiento se está estudiando cada vez más

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Werner Sombart on heroes versus merchants

12 Comments / Business Ethics, History, History of Philosophy, Politics /

Those of us in the democratic-republican West often find it impossible to understand how the world could go to war so often in the 20th century. We were raised in a culture that had internalized Locke, Jefferson, Mill, and others—for whom the goal of peace and respect for others’ rights to life, liberty, and property

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Rimsky-Korsakov on the “hardship” of the composer’s life

1 Comment / Business Ethics, Music /

According to Shostakovich: “Rimsky-Korsakov used to say that he refused to acknowledge any complaints from composers about their hard lot in life. He explained his position thus: Talk to a bookkeeper and he’ll start complaining about life and his work. Work has ruined him, it’s so dull and boring. You see, the bookkeeper had planned

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