THE ETHICS THEORY AND THE FREE MARKET IN THE GLOBALIZATION CONTEXT

The world is facing a massive transformation at the level of international business environment. Large transactions between the countries and the exploitation of the weapon called comparative advantage disconsiders in a multitude of cases what we generally call ethics. First of all, the paper stresses the issue of business ethics and its complexity in relationship with the free market. The western society haS evolved towards a well-stabilized theory of ethics in the last centuries, but in the meantime, the same socitey has developed a pregnant material tendency and has adopted consumerism as a new religion. The social development in the two mentioned spheres has led to a series of important dilemmas and contradictions, that not only persist, bu seem to be accentuated in the globalization era. The most concerning problems appeared in the Asian contries, where the utilitarian views put in practice have caused the individial’ s rights and interests to be totally neglected. Asia may have appeared as a huge opportunity for the western companies in the ’70, especially for the cheap labour force and the economico-political environment, but nowadays the oriental countries are transformed into a debateful ethical area, where 10- year old children are forced to work in unhu- man conditions. For all these causes the business ethics problem should be seriously taken into consideration and applied where necessary, while there is still time.