While there is a vast literature in economics on cost-benefit analysis (CBA), caution is appropriate when applying it and making the business case for human rights. Sen distinguishes two broad kinds of CBA: (1) The general approach to CBA includes explicit valuation, broadly consequential evaluation and additive accounting and is supported by a wide consensus. (2) Additional requirements of CBA are structural demands, evaluative indifferences and market-centered valuation. While they can provide gains mainly in convenience and usability, they significantly reduce the reach of the evaluative exercise. This occurs particularly in the mainstream approach of CBA, which uses the market analogy to assess the costs and benefits of public policies and corporate strategies. The chapter argues that a general CBA approach to human rights is acceptable, but only with limited additional requirements. Dorothée Baumann-Pauly & Michael Posner distinguish the negative and the positive business cases for human rights. The first type is reactive and mostly applies a purely economic rationale. The second type is proactive and innovative, incorporates human rights into the core business strategy and adopts a long-term perspective.

Wealth creation and human rights gain particular significance in the context of globalization, sustainability and financialization. Globalization is understood as “a kind of international system in the making” (T.L. Friedman), characterized by an increasing interconnectedness of the world, due to the revolution of information technology and an immense reduction in the costs of transportation and communication. A new framework of international relations distinguishes four types: the foreign-country type, the empire type, the interconnection type and the globalization type. They are part of the extended conception of business and economic ethics at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Sustainability, defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), is incorporated and concretized in the Sustainable Development Goals (2015). And financialization as “the increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies” (G.A. Epstein) stands in striking contrast with the comprehensive conception of wealth creation.

Corporate governance, understood as the authoritative direction and control of the company, has to serve the purpose of the company, that is, to create wealth in the comprehensive sense and to respect human rights. First, the chapter presents a brief overview of different conceptions of corporate governance (Cadbury Report, King Reports I-IV, G20/OECD, Shleifer & Vishny, Monks & Minow, Hilb, Rossouw, U.S. Business Roundtable). Against this backdrop, the book’s new perspective of corporate governance is explained in line with the seven features of wealth creation and the three criteria of respecting human rights. In many situations – like in the Medtronic case – the advancement of one type of capital (for example, human capital) goes hand in hand with the advancement of another type of capital (for example, economic capital). However, the question arises how to deal with trade-offs between different types of capital. It is proposed to define minimal ethical requirements for each type of capital (for example, not to pollute the air) in line with “the balanced concept of the firm.” At this minimal level, no trade-offs are acceptable while, beyond this minimum, trade-offs are allowed. As for human rights, corporate governance requires proactive strategies to prevent trade-offs between human rights.

When considering the wealth of a nation, one easily realizes that wealth is a combination of private and public wealth, not only an accumulation of private wealth. The chapter explains the economic distinction of private and public goods, using the formal criteria of non-rivalry and non-exclusability characteristic for public goods and public bads. While the production of private goods depends on public goods and can suffer from public bads, the production of public goods, in turn, depends on the production of private goods contributed by individuals and companies. Wealth conceived as a combination of private and public wealth has far-reaching implications for the necessary institutions and motivations: the roles and limits of markets and collective actors (such as governments and communities) and self-regarding (particularly self-interest) and other-regarding (such as care, solidarity and compassion) motivations.

The wealth of a society is defined as the total amount of economically relevant private and public assets including natural, economic, human and social capital. In line with the OECD well-being framework, these four types of capital are necessary for the sustainability of well-being over time. Natural capital comprises nonrenewable and conditionally renewable natural assets and natural liabilities, land and ecosystems. Two sets of questions are briefly discussed: how natural capital can be valued in monetary terms and to whom the property rights of natural assets and liabilities should be allocated. Economic capital, consisting of physical and financial capital, is far less complicated to evaluate than natural capital. According to UNECE, OECD and Eurostat, “the observed market prices for produced and financial capital are fair reflections of their well-being effects.” The concept of human capital adopted in this book goes beyond the stock of economically productive human capabilities (G. Becker) and means healthy and educated people, while social capital – in Robert Putnam’s sense – refers to “connections among individuals – social networks and the norm of reciprocity and trust worthiness that arise from them.”

Creating wealth and respecting human rights seem to be an odd couple, the first evoking a rush for money and the second admonishing restraint for politics. And, applied to business enterprises, this couple brings forth an unusual creature: corporate responsibility. In this book I have undertaken to combine these three ideas in the hope that this creation will be well received by scholars, practitioners and a broader interested audience.