Contents

• Introduction
• Ethical business behaviour
• Government’s role in ethical business behaviour
• Conclusion
• References

Description

The debate about ethical business behavior and Government’s role in it goes back to the days of philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Marx. While some believed in no interference by the State (Government) in financial matters, others supported State’s intervention in economic life of the people. Cannon stated “ the concentration of power in the hands of enterprise owners could threaten the state and the established ways of allocating resources by placing 'new fetters on the poor, and new powers on the rich.” But Scholars like Milton Friedman (1970) argued that the 'social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.’ He said, “there is one and only social responsibility of business which is to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.” The businesses and the institutional arrangements in which work gets done have been undergoing massive changes in recent years because of the takeover, breakup and reconfiguration of corporations, the decline of unions and with the coming up of concepts like mixed economy, private sector etc.