Arguments Against Corporate Social Responsibility

If the arguments for a socially responsible approach were widely accepted, nobody would even using the label "CSR" because everyone would be doing it. Those of us who spend our time marshalling the case for would do well to spend a little time hearing the case against, and considering what should be the response.
Of course, one of the challenges in considering cases "for" and "against" CSR is the wide variety of definitions of CSR that people use. We assume here we are talking about responsibility in how the company carries out its core function.
Businesses are owned by their shareholders - any money they spend on so-called social responsibility is effectively theft from those shareholders who can, after all, decide for themselves if they want to give to charity.
This is the voice of the laisser-faire 1980s, still being given powerful voice by advocates such as Elaine Sternberg. Sternberg argues that there is a human rights case against CSR, which is that a stakeholder approach to management deprives shareholders of their property rights. She states that the objectives sought by conventional views of social responsibility are absurd. Not all aspects of CSR are guilty of this, however. Sternberg states that ordinary decency, honesty and fairness should be expected of any corporation.
Response: In the first instance, this case strongly depends on the model of social responsibility adopted by the business being a philanthropic one. The starting point assumption is that, through CSR, corporations simply get to "give away" money which rightfully belongs to other people. If CSR is seen as a process by which the business manages its relationships with a variety of influential stakeholders who can have a real influence on its licence to operate, the business case becomes immediately apparent. CSR is about building relationships with customers, about attracting and retaining talented staff, about managing risk, and about assuring reputation.
The market capitalisation of a company often far exceeds the "property" value of the company. For instance, as much as 96% of Coca Cola is made up of "intangibles" - a major part of which rests on the reputation of the company. Only a fool would run risks with a company's reputation when it is so large a part of what the shares represent.
In any case, if shareholders are to be accorded full property rights one would expect to see the balancing feature of responsibility for the actions taken by the enterprises they often fleetingly own. Since most shareholders remain completely unaware of any such responsibility, it can only fall to the management - the "controlling mind" of the company, to take that responsibility on.
The leading companies who report on their social responsibility are basket cases - the most effective business leaders don't waste time with this stuff.
When surveys are carried out of the "Most Respected Business Leaders" you will often find names there, such as Bill Gates of Microsoft, a few years ago Jack Welch of GE, who have not achieved their world class status by playing nice. Welch is still remembered for the brutal downsizing he led his business through, and for the environmental pollution incidents and prosecutions. Microsoft has had one of the highest profile cases of bullying market dominance of recent times - and Gates has been able to achieve the financial status where he can choose to give lots of money away by being ruthless in business. Doesn't that go to prove that "real men don't do CSR"?!
Response: There is no denying the force of this argument. We do not live in a Disney world where virtue is always seen to be rewarded, and that's a fact. Nevertheless, the picture is not as simple as the above argument makes out.
In the first instance, very few businesses operate in a black or white framework, where they are either wholly virtuous or wholly without redemption. There are many aspects in the way Jack Welch restructured General Electric which would play to the kind of agenda recognisable to advocates of social responsibility - in particular that of employee empowerment. Welch has gone on record as saying that he believes the time has passed when making a profit and paying taxes was all that a company had to worry about.
Also, many of the leading companies with regard to their social responsibility are equally successful companies. The same "Most Respected" surveys will usually provide other names at, or near, the top such as IBM and Motorola - and these are companies that have been much more strongly associated with the CSR movement. Coca Cola achieved its place partially because of its profile in social responsibility. When still in charge, Sir John Browne of BP was widely respected as having led BP into a strong position as one of the world's leading companies whilst also showing environmental leadership. The events that latterly tarnished that reputation simply show that skill in execution is key to success - but even those events don't disprove the fact that success in business and commitment to responsibility can go hand in hand.
Our company is too busy surviving hard times to do this. We can't afford to take our eye off the ball - we have to focus on core business.
It's all very well for the very big companies with lots of resources at their disposal. For those fighting for survival, it's a very different picture. You can't go spending money on unnecessary frills when you're laying people off and morale is rock bottom. And the odd bit of employee volunteering won't make any difference to our people when they feel cynical and negative about how the company operates.
Response: Managing your social responsibility is like any other aspect of managing your business. You can do it well, or you can do it badly. If the process of managing social responsibility leads you to take your eye off the ball and stop paying attention to core business, the problem is not that you're doing it at all - it's that you're doing it badly. Well managed CSR supports the business objectives of the company, builds relationships with key stakeholders whose opinion will be most valuable when times are hard, and should reduce business costs and maximise its effectiveness.
If you don't believe me, ask yourself if the following statements make sense:
Times are hard, therefore it is in my interest to pollute more and run an increased risk of prosecutions and fines, not to mention attracting the attention of environmental pressure groups
Times are hard, therefore I can afford to lose some of my most talented people - serving or potential - by erecting barriers on the basis of race, gender, age or sexual orientation. And it doesn't matter if employment tribunals occur as a result of my poor employment practices.
Times are hard, therefore I need to ignore changing values in my customer base towards socially responsible goods and services. I can keep making things just the way I always have.
Times are hard, so I can ignore the fact that the local communities around my plant are poor living environments with low education achievement, meaning that my best staff won't want to live in them and our future staff will need supplementary training in basic skills such as literacy which they should be getting at school. Our company can be an island of prosperity in a sea of deprivation.
It's the responsibility of the politicians to deal with all this stuff. It's not our role to get involved
Business has traditionally been beyond morality and public policy. We will do what we're allowed to do. We expect governments to provide the legal framework that says what society will put up with. There's no point, for instance, allowing smoking to remain legal - even making large tax receipt from it - and then acting as though tobacco companies are all immediately beyond the pale. If you think it's so dreadful, you should make it illegal. If not, then let us get on with the job of meeting the demand out there of adults who can choose for themselves.
Response: In some areas, this is right - albeit that it is getting increasingly difficult to sustain. If you consider that of all the institutions which are currently getting more powerful in the world, they are essentially the global players - the multinational corporations and the non-governmental organisations. The institutions which are decreasing in power and influence are those tied to the jurisdiction of the nation state - governments first and foremost. It is tempting therefore to look towards the multinationals to take a lead in creating solutions for global problems where the governments seem incapable of achieving co-operative solutions. The interest of Unilever in sustainable fisheries comes to mind. However, there is a strong case that says that the democratic deficit created by such a process is too important to ignore. To whom are the multinational corporations accountable?
Outside of that "macro" scale, the argument holds up less well. Many companies actually spend considerable time and money seeking to influence the formation of public policy in their area of interest. And since that area of interest can range far and wide - from international treaties on climate change, through to domestic policy on health (such as that relating to smoking) or transport - the fact is the lobbying activities of companies show that they have a role like it or not. And if that lobbying has involved blocking legislation that serves a social end purely in order to continue to profit in the short term, then the company is on very dodgy ground.
If CSR is simply about obeying the law and paying taxes, then perhaps the above statement is fair comment. If it is about managing the demands and expectations of opinion formers, customers, shareholders, local communities, governments and environmental NGOs - if it is about managing risk and reputation, and investing in community resources on which you later depend - then the argument is a nonsense.
I have no time for this. I've got to get out and sell more to make our profit line.
Response: I have spoken to a lot of business managers about environmental performance, and it always struck me how difficult a sell waste minimisation was to managers who really needed to save money. Study after study after study has shown that just about any business you can think of, if it undertakes waste minimisation for the first time, can shift 1% of its overall turnover straight onto its bottom line. That is not an insignificant figure. And yet, getting out and selling more product somehow remains more attractive for business managers than making more profit through wasting less. It will take a long time and a change in fundamental attitudes towards doing business before this one shifts. In the mean time, keep looking at the evidence.
Corporations don't really care - they're just out to screw the poor and the environment to make their obscene profits
Corporations have their share of things to answer for - but I simply don't recognise the cynical caricature of business leaders in many of the people I deal with in business today. The fact is that if you're interested in the real solutions to world poverty or environmental degradation, you have to have some kind of view about how solutions will be found. I haven't yet seen the vision described by the anti-corporatist movement that shows how the problems will be solved by "us" somehow triumphing over "them" - big business.
The solutions to these common problems will either be common solutions or they won't be solutions. By all means give careful scrutiny to those who wield the most power. But recognise CSR as a business framework which enables the common solution of wealth creation as if people and the environment mattered.

Concept & Application of Social Responsibilty

When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free en­terprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing em­ployment, eliminating discrimination, avoid­ing pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of re­formers. In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preach­ing pure and unadulterated socialism. Busi­nessmen who talk this way are unwitting pup­pets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.
The discussions of the "social responsibili­ties of business" are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that "business" has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but "business" as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom.
Presumably, the individuals who are to be responsible are businessmen, which means in­dividual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows I shall mostly neglect the individual proprietors and speak of corporate executives.
In a free-enterprise, private-property sys­tem, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct re­sponsibility to his employers. That responsi­bility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while con­forming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary purpose–for exam­ple, a hospital or a school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objective but the rendering of certain services.
In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.
Needless to say, this does not mean that it is easy to judge how well he is performing his task. But at least the criterion of performance is straightforward, and the persons among whom a voluntary contractual arrangement exists are clearly defined.
Of course, the corporate executive is also a person in his own right. As a person, he may have many other responsibilities that he rec­ognizes or assumes voluntarily–to his family, his conscience, his feelings of charity, his church, his clubs, his city, his country. He ma}. feel impelled by these responsibilities to de­vote part of his income to causes he regards as worthy, to refuse to work for particular corpo­rations, even to leave his job, for example, to join his country's armed forces. Ifwe wish, we may refer to some of these responsibilities as "social responsibilities." But in these respects he is acting as a principal, not an agent; he is spending his own money or time or energy, not the money of his employers or the time or energy he has contracted to devote to their purposes. If these are "social responsibili­ties," they are the social responsibilities of in­dividuals, not of business.
What does it mean to say that the corpo­rate executive has a "social responsibility" in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price in crease would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or that he is to make expendi­tures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the cor­poration or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore" un­employed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty.
In each of these cases, the corporate exec­utive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his "social responsi­bility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. The executive is exercising a distinct "social responsibility," rather than serving as an agent of the stockholders or the customers or the employees, only if he spends the money in a different way than they would have spent it.
But if he does this, he is in effect imposing taxes, on the one hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other.
This process raises political questions on two levels: principle and consequences. On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are gov­ernmental functions. We have established elab­orate constitutional, parliamentary and judicial provisions to control these functions, to assure that taxes are imposed so far as possible in ac­cordance with the preferences and desires of the public–after all, "taxation without repre­sentation" was one of the battle cries of the American Revolution. We have a system of checks and balances to separate the legisla­tive function of imposing taxes and enacting expenditures from the executive function of collecting taxes and administering expendi­ture programs and from the judicial function of mediating disputes and interpreting the law.
Here the businessman–self-selected or appointed directly or indirectly by stockhold­ers–is to be simultaneously legislator, execu­tive and, jurist. He is to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds–all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to restrain inflation, improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and on.
The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This jus­tification disappears when the corporate ex­ecutive imposes taxes and spends the pro­ceeds for "social" purposes. He becomes in effect a public employee, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employee of a private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil ser­vants–insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just win­dow-dressing–should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expendi­tures to foster "social" objectives, then politi­cal machinery must be set up to make the as­sessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served.
This is the basic reason why the doctrine of "social responsibility" involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce re­sources to alternative uses.
On the grounds of consequences, can the corporate executive in fact discharge his al­leged "social responsibilities?" On the other hand, suppose he could get away with spending the stockholders' or customers' or employees' money. How is he to know how to spend it? He is told that he must contribute to fighting inflation. How is he to know what ac­tion of his will contribute to that end? He is presumably an expert in running his company–in producing a product or selling it or financing it. But nothing about his selection makes him an expert on inflation. Will his hold­ ing down the price of his product reduce infla­tionary pressure? Or, by leaving more spending power in the hands of his customers, simply divert it elsewhere? Or, by forcing him to produce less because of the lower price, will it simply contribute to shortages? Even if he could an­swer these questions, how much cost is he justi­fied in imposing on his stockholders, customers and employees for this social purpose? What is his appropriate share and what is the appropri­ate share of others?
And, whether he wants to or not, can he get away with spending his stockholders', cus­tomers' or employees' money? Will not the stockholders fire him? (Either the present ones or those who take over when his actions in the name of social responsibility have re­duced the corporation's profits and the price of its stock.) His customers and his employees can desert him for other producers and em­ployers less scrupulous in exercising their so­cial responsibilities.
This facet of "social responsibility" doc­ trine is brought into sharp relief when the doctrine is used to justify wage restraint by trade unions. The conflict of interest is naked and clear when union officials are asked to subordinate the interest of their members to some more general purpose. If the union offi­cials try to enforce wage restraint, the consequence is likely to be wildcat strikes, rank­-and-file revolts and the emergence of strong competitors for their jobs. We thus have the ironic phenomenon that union leaders–at least in the U.S.–have objected to Govern­ment interference with the market far more consistently and courageously than have business leaders.
The difficulty of exercising "social responsibility" illustrates, of course, the great virtue of private competitive enterprise–it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to "exploit" other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes. They can do good–but only at their own expense.
Many a reader who has followed the argu­ment this far may be tempted to remonstrate that it is all well and good to speak of Government's having the responsibility to im­pose taxes and determine expenditures for such "social" purposes as controlling pollu­tion or training the hard-core unemployed, but that the problems are too urgent to wait on the slow course of political processes, that the exercise of social responsibility by busi­nessmen is a quicker and surer way to solve pressing current problems.
Aside from the question of fact–I share Adam Smith's skepticism about the benefits that can be expected from "those who affected to trade for the public good"–this argument must be rejected on grounds of principle. What it amounts to is an assertion that those who favor the taxes and expenditures in question have failed to persuade a majority of their fellow citizens to be of like mind and that they are seeking to attain by undemocratic procedures what they cannot attain by democratic proce­dures. In a free society, it is hard for "evil" people to do "evil," especially since one man's good is another's evil.
I have, for simplicity, concentrated on the special case of the corporate executive, ex­cept only for the brief digression on trade unions. But precisely the same argument ap­plies to the newer phenomenon of calling upon stockholders to require corporations to exercise social responsibility (the recent G.M crusade for example). In most of these cases, what is in effect involved is some stockholders trying to get other stockholders (or customers or employees) to contribute against their will to "social" causes favored by the activists. In­sofar as they succeed, they are again imposing taxes and spending the proceeds.
The situation of the individual proprietor is somewhat different. If he acts to reduce the returns of his enterprise in order to exercise his "social responsibility," he is spending his own money, not someone else's. If he wishes to spend his money on such purposes, that is his right, and I cannot see that there is any ob­jection to his doing so. In the process, he, too, may impose costs on employees and cus­tomers. However, because he is far less likely than a large corporation or union to have mo­nopolistic power, any such side effects will tend to be minor.
Of course, in practice the doctrine of social responsibility is frequently a cloak for actions that are justified on other grounds rather than a reason for those actions.
To illustrate, it may well be in the long run interest of a corporation that is a major employer in a small community to devote resources to providing amenities to that community or to improving its government. That may make it easier to attract desirable employees, it may reduce the wage bill or lessen losses from pilferage and sabotage or have other worthwhile effects. Or it may be that, given the laws about the deductibility of corporate charitable contributions, the stockholders can contribute more to chari­ties they favor by having the corporation make the gift than by doing it themselves, since they can in that way contribute an amount that would otherwise have been paid as corporate taxes.
In each of these–and many similar–cases, there is a strong temptation to rationalize these actions as an exercise of "social responsibility." In the present climate of opinion, with its wide spread aversion to "capitalism," "profits," the "soulless corporation" and so on, this is one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a by-product of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self-interest.
It would be inconsistent of me to call on corporate executives to refrain from this hyp­ocritical window-dressing because it harms the foundations of a free society. That would be to call on them to exercise a "social re­sponsibility"! If our institutions, and the atti­tudes of the public make it in their self-inter­est to cloak their actions in this way, I cannot summon much indignation to denounce them. At the same time, I can express admiration for those individual proprietors or owners of closely held corporations or stockholders of more broadly held corporations who disdain such tactics as approaching fraud.
Whether blameworthy or not, the use of the cloak of social responsibility, and the nonsense spoken in its name by influential and presti­gious businessmen, does clearly harm the foun­dations of a free society. I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely farsighted and clearheaded in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly shortsighted and muddle­headed in matters that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of busi­ness in general. This shortsightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or income policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally con­trolled system than effective governmental con­trol of prices and wages.
The shortsightedness is also exemplified in speeches by businessmen on social respon­sibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, businessmen seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.
The political principle that underlies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all coopera­tion is voluntary, all parties to such coopera­tion benefit or they need not participate. There are no values, no "social" responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.
The political principle that underlies the political mechanism is conformity. The indi­vidual must serve a more general social inter­est–whether that be determined by a church or a dictator or a majority. The individual may have a vote and say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform. It is appropriate for some to require others to contribute to a general social purpose whether they wish to or not.
Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasi­ble. There are some respects in which conformity appears unavoidable, so I do not see how one can avoid the use of the political mecha­nism altogether.
But the doctrine of "social responsibility" taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book Capitalism and Freedom, I have called it a "fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."