Suchergebnisse

Ideals of collective solidarity and community are often affirmed by authoritar-ians as well as by democrats. That double fact has seemed paradoxical to many thinkers, some of whom conclude, or suspect, that the pursuit of collective initiatives and solidarities is reactionary in principle. The fact that Nazi Germany sought to revive the Volksgemeinschaft (folk community) has fueled this suspicion. One con-sequence has been that thinkers whose views are regarded as collectivist have often been charged with setting the stage for fascism. Accusing fingers are often pointed at philosophers (Hegel, Schopenhauer) and sociologists (Weber, Durkheim). Lately, a subterranean current of accusations against Émile Durkheim in particular has gained renewed attention. Charges by Svend Ranulf and Marcel Déat in the prewar era have been resuscitated. But closely examined, the views of Ranulf, Déat, and their latter-day successors reveal deep confusion about democracy, solidarity, community, fascism, and resistance to fascism.

Breaches of ethics and social responsibility in domestic and international business are typically thought to be anchored in such phenomena as greed, dishonesty and conflict of interest. While these forces are frequently at work in international business transactions, there is often another major force at work when failures of ethics and social responsibility occur. This article addresses the question of what is it about the way that transnational company managers and government officials think or don't think that leads to breaches of ethics and social responsibility - breaches that often result in major health, environmental and social tragedies. The article considers several cases of breaches in ethics and social responsibility: Texaco's and Shell's oil exploration and development in Ecuador and Nigeria, the Bhopal gas plant explosion in India, Wal-Mart's sourcing of timber from China for manufacture of wood products, the trade in biofuels, the trade in toxic financial instruments, and the China milk crisis. The article discusses the roles of a variety of thoughtprocesses in corporate and governmental decision-making and raises the question of whether we do enough in law schools and in business schools and school of public administration to address how companies and governments and their advisors think.

I would like to begin this discussion by providing a framework for a general analysis of the concessions problem. If one were to take a look at the general literature relating to concessions in the late 1940's, 1950's, and early 1960's, one would obtain a very special view of concessions in that literature. This view was shaped, to some extent, by the sociology of concessions knowledge. Most concessionaires and most concession-giving countries have traditionally held their concession agreements very close to their vests, and it has until recently been extremely difficult to obtain copies of actual agreements. Consequently, those academics and others who wrote about concessions in the 1940's, '50's, and '60's found that they had very little to write about except the traditional lawyer's concern for sanctity of contract, choice of law, and arbitration. With regard to the latter topic it might be observed that never has so much been written by so many for so few because, as we all know, concession agreements seldom come to arbitration. One reason is that the arbitration clause usually deals with the sort of disputes which are not at the heart of most country concessionaire conflicts.