مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

The contours of this still relatively young field have begun to emerge. Of course, the connection between trade and business has long been acknowledged by moral philosophers such as Kant (1795) and Montesquieu (1748), as well as by free market economists such as Hayek (1988) and politicians of varying political stripes. Yet, the field of business and peace asserts that, underneath this macroeconomic connection, it is worthwhile to examine the conduct of individual businesses. They are the agents of trade. They are the institutions and individuals that interact with human beings who make war and who also suffer from it.

Some businesses enthusiastically attempt to contribute to peace, a group of businesses I have called ‘peace entrepreneurs.’ These companies specifically have peace as a mission as part of their business strategy. Other businesses recognize that their profitability tends to be enhanced when bombs do not drop on their buildings and their employees avoid being shot. They carefully calculate the company’s position in the world and conduct corporate foreign policy in their work. These companies take an instrumentalist approach to peace. Finally,some companies simply conduct themselves in a sound, ethical way. Over these past seventeen years, I have argued that ethical practices correlate with the conduct anthropologists have found to be practices of relatively non-violent societies. Thus, whether or not a company intends to pursue peace, it may do exactly that by being a sound, ethical company (Fort, 2015).