All through history, there have always been movements where business was not just about the accumulation of proceeds but also for the public good.

Roddick frames “ethical business” not as a modern marketing trend but as a recurring historical impulse: commerce can be organized around social purpose as well as profit. The line pushes back against the idea that shareholder return is the sole or natural end of enterprise, suggesting instead that businesses have long been vehicles for reform, mutual aid, and community benefit. In the spirit of her activism at The Body Shop—campaigning on issues such as human rights, environmental protection, and fair trade—the quote argues for a tradition of socially responsible entrepreneurship. It implies that aligning business with the public good is both legitimate and historically grounded, not an exception to capitalism but one of its possible moral trajectories.