1997 I was part of a group of U.S. women traveling in the mountains of Haiti to meet with women from the village of Medor. We were exploring the establishment of partnerships between U.S. sponsors and Haitian women interested in starting small businesses. Each woman spoke of selling salt, oil, thread, flour, or other commodities that were part of daily life.
When asked why they wanted to start a small business, a young Haitian woman gave an answer I will never forget. "I want to start this small business so I can feed my small children a meal each day," she said. In the stunned silence, we asked what she does now. "Now I feed my children a meal two or three times a week. The rest of the time they chew sugar cane so they will not feel hungry." Any attempt to understand "business ethics" must be anchored in this womans reality.
In the years since the end of World War II, the world has seen the local economies of individual nations transformed into an increasingly interwoven fabric: global finance and a global economy. We read about corporate mergers, takeovers, buy-outs, and conglomerates. Success is measured by the billions of dollars "earned" by a corporation and its shareholders, or by a countrys gross national product, or by the inflation rate. All of this affects the complex relationships between companies and the countries in which they operate.
Yet rarely do we read about the effects of the globalization of the economy on individual countries as a whole, or on groups of people within a country. This lack of attention to the effects of globalization on individuals and communities serves to mask many of the global economys negative effects.
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