Western, liberal perspectives on the appropriateness of moral obligations and values in relation to business practice may be seen in stark contrast to those held by a Buddhist society. The thought of Kant, Locke, and Mill have heavily, if not completely, formed the Western, liberal viewpoint in favor of the individual, private property, duty, and utility. These considerations naturally carry on to our conception of appropriate business practices with a focus on the bottom line in terms of shareholders and a limited sense of the corporation's duty, preferring rather to concern ourselves with utility of the enterprise. The Buddhist perspective, on the other hand is reflective of pratityasamutpada – or the extreme interconnectedness of everything. In order to get a better handle on these considerations, let us review some of the discussion found in the following articles.

Friedman, in his article "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits," put forward a rather narrow view of corporate responsibility. If corporate executives exercise social responsibility at the expense of shareholder profit, he argues, they neglect their obligations to shareholders and assume a governmental role they have no right to assume. These social responsibilities include providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution, or "whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers." Defenders of this broader view of corporate responsibility are advocating socialism and their view is claimed to be incompatible with a free society. If executives believe that it is in the corporation's economic interest to attack certain social problems, they should do so, but they should not justify their actions by claiming a social responsibility. Doing so only invites undue interference with the legitimate economic role of corporations.

Clearly this is a defense of purely Western, liberal business ethics, viewing the corporation as an individual itself. He goes on in detail to discuss certain particular concerns such as taxation without representation occurring when the shareholder's money is spent with no one asking them how it should be, the dual role of employee duties: to the owner/boss/executive/employer and to their families/children/selves, and competency concerns of the executive/corporation itself in areas of social issues – claiming essentially 'that's what government's for.

Friedman is supported in his Western, liberal view in Baxter's piece "A Good Environment: Just One of the Set of Human Objectives" which endorses an anthropocentric viewpoint, interpreting reality exclusively in terms of human values and experience, and proposes four criteria by which we can judge proposals for dealing with pollution. These place focus on "people, not penguins," as penguins are only valuable insofar as people value them; they have no inherent value. The individualism and private concerns we began to see in Friedman's work are pushed ever further here; while some concern for the environment and of social issues is indeed warranted, this comes only from a selfish vested interest in them, a truly liberal view of responsibilities.

We welcome our first look at our concerns from outside the Western, liberal sphere as Hershock argues in "Media, Attention, and the Colonization of Consciousness: A Buddhist Perspective" how media ethics has focused too much on the content of the media, and has missed important truths about the ways in which the media itself shapes our thoughts and emotions. The media makes much deeper inroads to our consciousness than is often recognized; a Buddhist perspective on the media allows us to better understand the danger this poses. Buddhists center on the Four Noble Truths, which lead to the Noble Eightfold Path. In our current discussion, we shall focus on the ideas of 'right speech.' This is different from free speech. Right speech should incur healing relationships through the cultivation of felt interdependence. Free speech is often harsh, false, untimely, connected with harm, focused on gossip, idle or purposeless, and characterized by inner hate or contempt. This leads to a weariness and disappointment; an awareness of troubling and unfulfilling relationships, but does nothing to revise them.

When these ideas are expanded to considerations of ethical business practices, we find a criticism of all the above prescriptions. First we need to juxtapose our current world stage with the settings of only a few hundred years ago: the Roman Empire meant nothing to the Amazon or the Artic, but the United States alone is altering nearly everything indeed everywhere. It is with such overreaching impact that the concerns put forth by the Buddhist society should be heralded. "The Buddhist Attitude Towards Nature", by de Silva, reminds us that Buddhism offers man a simple, moderate lifestyle eschewing both extremes of self-deprivation and self-indulgence. Satisfaction of basic human necessities, reduction of wants to the minimum, frugality, and contentment are the important characteristics.

Let us remain with the Western, liberal view of enterprise as an individual as Nike certainly claims it to be. Even then, perhaps, the Buddhist's ideals mentioned above deserve attention – business conducting itself in avoidance of extremes, rather than embracing them. If we rather consider business as simply the extension of an individual, or a group of them, it is even simpler to understand the middle road upon which it should be conducted under Buddhist perspective, everything being connected and goals of compassion and impartiality. Rather than Kantian duty or Mill's utility, success is measured by harmony.