Peace Through Commerce

Director: Timothy L. Fort

The Program on Peace Through Commerce/Business Ethics bases its work on the idea that ethical business behavior has an unexpected payoff: it seems to correlate with attributes of relatively nonviolent societies. To that end, the program develops research, programming, teaching, and conference on business ethics in today's corporate world as well as extending that notion to concepts of geopolitics. Business Ethics issues revolve around compliance with legal requirements, such as The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, around the development of ethical cultures, and around the aesthetic, even spiritual senses of ethical quests for excellence that motivate moral behavior. Peace Through Commerce looks at how attention to external evaluation of corporate actions (through law or public opinion), economic development and profitability, and attention to building good external corporate citizenship as well as internal dimensions of corporate culture seem to contribute to nonviolence.

Select this link for a video presentation overviewing the academic and practical objectives of the Peace through Commerce field. The presentation is approximately 20 minutes long.