Business Institutions play a fundamental role in ensuring and preserving the common
good of society. The underlying philosophy of global society and its institutions half a
century after the Second World War still remain largely divided between capitalism and
socialism. The capitalists seemed to have won when the ‘iron curtain’ fell in 1989. Was
this the case? Not everyone has progressed since the end of the Cold War. Since 1990
some 55 countries have had declining per capita incomes, while inequality has risen
within and between countries. It is too soon to say whether global capitalism will be
saved from itself. This thesis is a theoretical analytical attempt at providing an
assessment of business institutions from the perspective of the social common good as
understood in the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophic tradition.