ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the fundamental understanding of people's public responsibility to work for the common good. It explores the development of these ideas in different historical settings around the globe, working its way to the modern era, as defined by emergence of liberalism and liberal inspired thought. The nascent liberal philosophy was in essence hijacked by corporate capitalism to validate 'selfish' corporate and corporate owners' interests, promoting individualism as the point of living in community, rather than public responsibility as the core prerequisite for living in community. From the total devotion to community responsibilities required of Spartans to Athenian norms around the civic responsibility of citizens, one can see a shared fundamental idea that one was responsible to contribute to the well-being of the whole community. The chapter concludes with some recommendations and proposals to counteract corporate capitalism's negative impact on public responsibility as a fundamental shared social paradigm.
