How do Swiss firms compare internationally in terms of business ethics?
They are extremely ambivalent. On the one hand, ethically responsible consumption in Switzerland is more commonplace than in other countries. One only has to think of the big distributors competing over ethics. On the other hand, Switzerland is home to many multinationals that are very heavily criticised in public. How strongly established is ethics in the economy? It started on a voluntary basis and now there is no going back. However, we need to continue to strengthen the dynamics of critical debate between companies and society. It requires a framework that would be in addition to and support this process, and nowadays this would have to be globally targeted. Should politicians step in? Urgently, because nation states and democracies have lost a huge amount of sovereignty. Instead of a bastion of freedom, the market economy enslaves rather than frees the individual. It almost seems as though the only thing left for people to do is to make themselves attractive to global investors –
