Communication in the Unfettered Marketplace: Ethical Interrelationships of Business, Government, and Stakeholders

As technology redefines relationships, new assumptions are emerging about the ethics of persuasion. In an increasingly global economy, technology is forcing greater transparency onto businesses and governments as the moral context of their communications is inseparable from the competitive nature of the business world. This article suggests that moral boundaries will be set naturally, that consumers have a moral obligation to excercise “due diligence” in their acceptance of messages, and that no one is in charge of the global economy’s conventions and morality. The system ultimately depends on participants to keep their own self-interested boat in the race.