Thought for the Day

[bcholmes]

While [Corporate Responsibility] might give the impression that companies are acting out of some moral duty, the reality of course is that they only care about the bottom line. It is the legal responsibility of corporations to maximize profits. As Joel Bakan puts it: "Human psychopaths are notorious for their ability to use charm as a mask to hide their dangerously self-obsessed personalities. For corporations, social responsibility may play the same role. Through it they can present themselves as compassionate and concerned about others when, in fact, they lack the ability to care about anyone or anything but themselves.

This is not to say that the people who work for corporations are psychopaths — far from it. I got the impression that many were really excited about the prospect of not having to put their personal values on hold in order to do their job. But there has to be a business case for it — it has to make money, save money, or shut the pesky campaigners up.

— "Companies who Care", New Internationalist

I find it a bit chilling that the idea of "putting personal values on hold" in the corporate sphere is so familiar.

Comments

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I should dig around into some of the books we publish that have contrasting views. It certainly is true that "personal values on hold" is (or at least usually is) common in corporate settings, but it's way more complicated than that.

If I were arguing with the quoter, I would say that the business case is employee retention, which both makes money and saves money, and everyone knows it. You don't need more than that.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Is the term "corporation" specific to only public companies? Because it's certainly not at all true that all companies have a legal responsibility to maximize profits. As far as I know, that's unique to public companies. (And even then, I have to wonder if it's only to the degree that not doing so opens them up to being sued.)