Corporate soul

By SKIP MENDLER

Whether it’s ExxonMobil or Halliburton, Lockheed Martin or ADM, Enron or New York Regional Interconnect, Inc., you can’t look for long at peace, social justice or environmental issues in the U.S. without running into questions about one of the fundamental institutions of our society, namely the corporation. The impact of corporations on every aspect of our lives, and especially our political process, has never been greater—and never before have we been confronted with so many critical questions about the responsibilities that corporations bear to the society in which they operate.

Indeed, the very notion that a corporation even has such things as “social responsibilities” is a relatively new concept, and one that still has its detractors. Most well known of these might be economist Milton Friedman, who famously wrote that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business… to engage in activities designed to increase its profits...”.

In a certain sense, he’s right. A corporation does have a statutory obligation to work to increase the profits of its shareholders, and corporate officers can be held legally accountable if they conduct the business in a way that reduces those profits. So the corporation per se might be considered as amoral as any predator—like a shark, say—that does what it has to in order to survive.

Businesses, however, are made up of individual human beings, who are not relieved of their own personal moral and ethical obligations when they sign an employment agreement. But corporate executives and employees alike are presented with strong motivations to internalize the corporate obligation to maximize profits, from the desire to reap bonuses or other rewards to the need to keep one’s job.

As we have seen in the corporate scandals of recent decades, it is far too easy for some individuals to abrogate their own responsibilities, and to fall under the mistaken belief that the corporate interest is paramount and must be advanced by any means necessary. A system that only measures performance by bottom-line profits will inevitably encourage this kind of behavior. The end results frequently include environmental damage, ruined lives, squandered resources and the eventual loss of even the short-term financial gains.

There’s a term for this phenomenon, by the way: it’s called “selling your soul.”

To be fair, of course, it must be noted that not all corporate employees, or all corporations for that matter, get drawn to the Dark Side in this manner. The “quality movement” within the corporate world ( see asq.org ) has long pointed out the need for corporations to measure themselves not just by their financial results but also by their impacts on all their “stakeholders” (including their employees, families and communities). Organizations like the Social Venture Network ( svn.org ) and Business for Social Responsibility ( bsr.org ) aim to encourage socially responsible practices from within the business world.

But unfortunately, even corporations that seem to “talk a good game” have to be observed and investigated carefully. The phenomenon of “greenwashing”—the cynical and calculated cultivation of a facetious image of “social responsibility” strictly for its PR value—is not exactly rare. The good news is that there are many resources on the Internet, including sites like SourceWatch ( sourcewatch.org ), Reclaim Democracy ( reclaimdemocracy.org ), CorpWatch ( corpwatch.org ) and the online column, “Focus on the Corporation” ( corporatepredators.org/focus.html ), that all serve to inform and alert citizens about corporate crime, abuses of corporate power and corporate influence in politics.

Of course, this will be true only as long as such content providers are allowed access to the Internet. See savetheinternet.com for more information on the “net neutrality” issue—and while you still can, drop me a line at smendler@care2.com with your tales of corporate good deeds or nefarious doings.