28/01/2005 11:17:49 am
CSR - a Socialist Plot? Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, is one of the strongest trends in the business community and hence international economy of today. It is assumed that capitalism, by itself, cannot be set free. Companies just pursuing their interest in profit would wreck the world, expecially on social and environmental matters. Governments and NGO:s should set up rules to force companies to "give something back to society". As shown in the recent survey on CSR by The Economist, this is fundamentally wrong. I even think CSR to a large extent can be seen as the return of a socialist mentality. The socialist planned economy failed, so now they want to take control of the productive forces in other ways. And big government fails on social issues, so politicians turn to the only thing that really works - private companies - to force them to take over the duties of their public welfare monopolies. Most of all, though, the notion of CSR is wrong because companies have already given everything to society. All the goods and services that we consume, all the jobs we go to, all the prosperity that creates our living standard - that comes from the companies. And those things are best enhanced by letting companies free - to chase profits by competing to make us consumers happy.
Read The Economist′s survey here - >