infonet-economy

Authors of short programmatic papers on broad subject-matters usually incur a feeling of having said almost nothing and omitted so many points that should have been explained. All the more it is a pleasant experience if dialogue partners nevertheless grasp almost everything. Such an astonishing understanding probably rests on basically common thought patterns. And this seems to be the case at least with three of my appreciated commentators (J.-P. Galavielle, A. Losoncz, and S.B. Young), but not so much with G.K. Becker whose perspective differs considerably from mine. Hence it is understandable that he complains of an "overly brief programmatic summary" of my conception and partly reacts with trivializing metaphors and some incorrect interpretations. There will not be enough room for clarifying all of them but at least - and with the help of the three other comments - I try to explicate some of the systematic implications of republican liberalism for business ethics.