Very little business time is spent philosophising. People in business generally don't spend their days thinking grand thoughts, but rather doing practical things in an effort to make money. Most of our daily activity is pretty mundane. There are other people in the world who do spend time on big picture ideas. The two worlds and their worries barely touch.
But then, at the highest echelons, somehow, they seem to meet. And so we have the phenomenon of Peter Sutherland being asked to address a Trocaire conference recently on the theme Towards a Global Ethic.
At the mundane level in business life, most people assume that what they are doing is ethical. There is no issue. Beyond day-to-day tasks, mention the word ethics and you can often provoke sniggers from cynics who believe that ethics are simply some sort of diversionary sop.
There are also sighs from those who would love to see high standards at all times but have become weary of such ideas as ethics training for futures floor traders (as has been required by the United States Congress).
These reactions seem a world away from the debate on "a new global ethic" that Mr Sutherland was asked to address. Over the last few years, we've been reading quite a bit about a new global ethic. It was a theme of Mary Robinson's in describing what might be done at the UN back in 1996. It was echoed by John Bruton while Taoiseach. It was Trocaire's theme last week. It was also aired by David Begg of Concern at a conference with the theme "Are We Forgetting Something?" last weekend.
The call has to go out to those beavering away in mundane business: Wake up - they're talking about you. This global ethic is not mere high-minded philosophising. It ends up being about the way business, and social relationships, are organised. The trouble with talk of a global ethic is that it is hard to pin down. There is a lot of confusion of how values, morality, rights and ethics all relate to each other. Sorting that out takes a lot of thought. For business, the context of a global ethic is usually globalisation, the interaction of companies from the developed world with people in developing or poor countries. As Mary Robinson put it, the imbalance between power and powerlessness is at the heart of the search for a global ethic. David Begg was reported as saying structures governing multinationals must serve social interests and not just those of shareholders. What's this got to do with most Irish businesses? Does it only concern those with operations in developing countries? Scratch at these ideas in the economic sphere and you'll see they are meant to apply in all circumstances.
The running of a company primarily in the interests of shareholders has been a target of Mr Begg's before. The interaction of the powerful with the powerless happens here too, not just on the corporate frontier between rich, developed and poor, developing countries. Talk of a global ethic, in the economic area, is also talk of a local ethic. It is as much about our small and medium-sized enterprises as about BP/Amoco, of which Mr Sutherland is co-chairman. Granted, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility. I don't think that many practical consequences have been identified of what a new global ethic would mean in the economic area. It seems inevitable that the outcome is meant to be some sort of code of conduct, or indeed regulation. The pull of government regulation - national, or international - is very strong. For many, it is the first resort.
But rather than jump straight into regulation, it would be better to explore fully how the latent power of shareholders, particularly pension funds, may be used to raise ethical standards. Last week, the Economist reported that while holders of more than 80 per cent of shares vote in the US, a mere 40 per cent do so in Britain and less than 10 per cent in the Netherlands. Shareholder activism is alive and well in the US; it is in deep freeze in Europe.
Shareholders, if they flex their muscles, can be a force for ethical engagement. Their freedom to do so is an aspect of US capitalism that traditional leftist thought here consistently fails to recognise. It's not a fight between shareholders' interests and ethics but a case of seeking shareholder satisfaction and ethical behaviour. This would be a valuable ethic, a new one worth achieving.
Oliver O'Connor is an investment funds specialist.
