PRECEPTS OF FAIR TRADE – KANTIAN PARAMETERS FOR BUSINESS ETHICS

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Free trade versus fair trade dichotomy divulges the ideological disparities in the global economy. We have been witnesses of intense trade wars depicted by these divergent precepts: free or fair, profitable or worthy, and moral or legal. If Adam Smith whom we have discussed elaborately in this book thought the fairest way to buy and sell commodities and goods was the free-market economy, Kant argued passionately that the supreme principle of morality is a standard of rationality, where business and trade like all human activities submit to the universal principle of moral judgement. Business and trade involve production and exchange of goods and services. Globalized markets have taken selling and buying beyond national boundaries, and these limitless possibilities of trade indeed necessitates a decisive moral paradigm of checks and balances. And in my assessment, such a moral system is offered by Immanuel Kant, which Precepts of Fair Trade earnestly seeks to unearth and recommend to the business fraternity for resolution of ethical conflicts.

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