Philosophy of business

The philosophy of business considers the fundamental principles that underlie the formation and operation of a business enterprise; the nature and purpose of a business, and the moral obligations that pertain to it.

Philipp Blom summarises the development and impact of business-centric ideas in society prior to the global financial crisis of 2008:

[...] Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises [...] were Europeans who had passed their formative years in the chaotic interwar years and whose conclusion was that state intervention and planned economies were hallmarks of dictatorship [...]. They believed that it was healthier to take ideology out of politics and base the workings of society on the objective, nonideological laws of the free market. [...] The Enlightenment cult of reason and of the common good was replaced by the concepts of rationalization and the maximization of profits, which were applied to a reevaluation of social institutions - infrastructure, schools, universities, prisons, health care, and so on - according to business-driven criteria of profitability and cost-effectiveness. Especially in the United States but also increasingly in Europe, we began to run our societies as businesses. Beginning in the late 1970s and gaining speed in the 1980s, this gospel changed and polarized our societies - but it also provided an umbrella of meaning and necessity under which we could hide from challenges from without as well as doubts from within. For many in the West, the idea of the market became their ideological home. Living in accordance with its guiding providence and iron laws created a sense of stability, of virtue even. But 2008 shattered this collective piety and made millions understand that they had been lied to [...].

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