Economy between Necessity and Luxury. Business Ethics from Antiquity to Early Modern Times
Species extinction, agricultural monocultures, factory farming, plastic waste in the oceans, melting of the polar ice caps, glacier melting, rising sea levels, the ozone hole, global warming, acidification of the oceans, acid rain, forest dieback, deforestation for the extraction of fields, nuclear waste and overfishing show ecological sins that must be avoided. Unlimited economic growth no longer seems possible, because the necessary materials on earth are only available in limited quantities. While the Club of Rome had pointed out the limits of earthly resources in 1972, today we know about the finiteness of the supplies of oil, sand, metals and rare earths. This brief introductory reflection contains two important key concepts: sin and limit. Both are normative: the former because it forbids actions, the latter because it calls for thrift.
