Posted by
RationalGuy on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 9:50:29 PM
It is highly politically-incorrect to challenge the very concept of "corporate social responsibility" (CSR), but the opposite should be the case. Proponents of CSR contend that a business has a moral obligation to "give back" some of its profits to society via philanthropy in one form or another. A truer way of phrasing such a supposed obligation is that the owners of a business must so use its profits. And the most representative statement would be that the management of a business has a moral obligation to divert some of the profits from the owners to such causes, even if doing so is not a good financial investment (e.g., cost-effective public relations), without the approval of the owners or even a sense that the owners wish to forego their income for this purpose.
Unless management of a business has reason to believe otherwise, their default assumption should be that the purpose of the business they manage is to maximize owner (shareholder) weatlh. Needless to say, the business is the property of the owners, and management have been hired to serve those owners, and the fundamental purpose of a business is to generate a return on investment. Management has a moral obligation to abide by the law and by ethical business practices (e.g., not deliberately misrepresenting their products/services, operations, etc. in ways that cause harm, even if doing so is not illegal), but for a manager to take money due the owners and spend it to benefit others at the expense of the owners is not only not a moral obligation, it is immoral -- it is theft. I would liken it to the legend of Robin Hood stealing from rich to help the poor, but even that comparison would be generous, given that even large corporations today have a great number of working class shareholders (e.g., via pensions/retirement accounts), while much corporate philanthropy (e.g., the arts) benefits primarily more affluent persons.
A business conducts exchanges with customers based on agreed prices that are high enough to be worth the business providing the products/services, and low enough to be worth the customer spending the money, and these exchanges inherently benefit both parties (as long as reasonable product/service expectations are met). Why conducting such exchanges produces an obligation of on the part of the owners of the business to sacrifice beyond what it took to provide the products/services is never quite explained. Management of a business should act legally and ethically. But unless management has good reason to believe the owners wish it to do otherwise, management should return the profits in full to the owners, who in turn can make their own decisions regarding philanthropy, and managers themselves can be charitable with their own money, not that of others.