Multinational Companies and the Common Good

The common-good concept has been developed mainly in the context of Western philosophy since Plato and Aristotle, and within Christian theology since St Thomas Aquinas. The idea that the state is the guarantor of the common good at the national level has long prevailed; however, this view is increasingly questioned by the relentless advance of the globalization process, and by the emergence of global risks and threats of all kinds at the planetary level. Quite logically, multinational companies, owing to their huge economic power, to their capacity to influence and to the multiple consequences of their activities, are the focus of much interest among those who strive to devise new ways to serve the common good – and more precisely, the global common good.