LIKE A PLANTATION OWNER AMONG HIS SLAVES

Résumé 0

This text aims at Social Responsibility of enterprises using Hegel's and Girard's insights about institutions and violence. Hegel talks about claiming responsibility for decisions and their effects. Since enterprises are economical institutions oriented to satisfy private interests, they are inadequate to the demand of a universal guarantee for citizen's rights. States should have that role, ensuring for every citizen the reality of these rights. This raises the question about reconciliation suggested by Girard. How does Hegel understand reconciliation? What can you expect from this conception for business? I suggest a rapprochement between messianic and apocalyptic ideas from Benjamin and Girard, as an alternative to end violence. Social Responsibility can repeat the tragic history of philanthropy in 1831, which is just another form of reciprocal violence that begets violence, because it puts the law at the center of its proposal, and looks with misgiving at the deepest possibility to stop its own violence. At the same time, what Girard proposes opens many questions about the possibilities of reducing conflicts generated by enterprises.