Economy suspended: the possibilities of a Badiouian business ethics

In the philosophy of A lain B adiou, ethics can only arise in relation to an evental truth procedure that breaks from the economic logic of a situation. Further, because for Badiou there cannot be economic truths per se – rather, economic matters must be understood in their relation to one or more truths in the domain of love, art, science or politics – a B adiouian business ethics would look entirely distinct from any ethics that simply places limits on certain kinds of economic activity. Although S lavoj Ž ižek, among others, has suggested that this marks an essential weakness in Badiou's economic/political theory, it may actually be the greatest strength of his position. Within a capitalist system, a Badiouian business ethics would then be a question of mobilizing economic resources in order to serve the ongoing construction of a truth procedure. For a business to be considered ethical on B adiou's terms, it must break – and continue to break – from the dominant logic of capitalism and its merely economic pursuit of profit maximization.