Politics, Ethics and Social Responsibility of Business

Thinking Conceptually about Politics

Rana Sudhir Kumar

UNIT 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The ‘idea of a good society’ incorporates the principles of liberty, equality, justice, rights and recognition

within itself. These principles have been enshrined in the constitutions of most of the democratic nations

of the world. These also constitute the core of ‘Politics’ – the activity by which the framework of society is

evolved and sustained. ‘The destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms’, remarked Thomas Mann.

Politicians, philosophers, academicians, businessmen and civil servants alike, entrusted with the task of

creating a just society through maintenance or transformation of the human environment, recognize politics

as the universal dimension of human life, which sustains the common world in which we live. Politics is

what David Easton calls ‘the authoritative allocation of values’. In other words, it is these principles that tell

us what should be admired and what should be condemned. Only a ‘good society’ would be able to do that.

A ‘just’ or a ‘good’ society, in turn, would be one which upholds the values of liberty, equality, justice, rights

and recognition. This presupposes the existence of a democratic social order based on freedom of enterprise,

welfare of the people, and above all, ethics and morality.

Chapter 1 discusses ‘liberty’, as a central concept of political life, clarif es its meaning and signif cance, and

then elaborates on the important distinction, which is made between ‘negative liberty’ and ‘positive liberty’.

Chapter 2 examines ‘equality’, recognized essentially as a principle of uniform apportionment, and

attempts to answer the all-important question: equal in what? The two basic forms in which ‘equality’ is used in

political philosophy – ‘foundational’ and ‘distributional’ are discussed in detail. Some of the more contemporary

perspectives such as ‘equality of capability’, ‘complex equality’ and ‘equality of status’ are also examined

brief y.

Chapter 3 attempts to uncover the meaning and essence of ‘justice’, explores its relevance as an ethical

principle in business, and then examines, brief y, various theories of ‘distributive justice’ with special

reference to John Rawls’ theory of ‘Justice as Fairness’.

Chapter 4 contains an analysis of the nature, characteristics, kind and basis of the doctrine of ‘rights’

and highlights the signif cance of ‘human rights’, particularly in relation to the corporate world.

Chapter 5 is a short essay on the concept of ‘recognition’. Realizing the importance of taking ‘differences’

into account in democratic practice, an attempt is made to examine the various dimensions of the ‘politics of

recognition’.

Chapter 6 seeks to understand diverse systems, structures, processes and principles, which together

could serve as the foundation of a ‘good society’.

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