Moral disguise

Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation, described Corporate Social Responsibility as a mask covering the fact that corporations are actually “designed to valorise self-interest and invalidate moral concern” – ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ is, according to him, oxymoronic to its definition. Though that’s a harsh way to look at the initiative, its weaknesses do run deep.

 

Market forces have moulded corporations into stage actors that act ostentatiously moral to an audience of consumers, yet behind the scenes they’re anything but responsible. Fuelled by profit-maximising urges, corporations are increasingly adopting charitable acts as a way to attract consumers and workers alike, while also polishing the brand name. Yet when it comes to murky issues of human rights and war, they hypocritically drop their mighty masks of good citizenship and stick their heads in the sand.

 

Take, for example, the sponsors of the upcoming Olympics in China. All of them have taken part in socially responsible acts in China that have apparently “boosted their image worldwide”, as stated in the China Daily: while Samsung has dedicated 9 million Yuan to building primary schools in rural China, Coca-Cola has been training 1,470 farmers in other areas, such as toy production, as a way to pull them out of poverty.

 

Yet, when it comes to China’s political issues, the same corporations play dumb. Several human rights groups, such as Dream for Darfur, have been pressuring the corporations to express their concerns about China’s investment in Sudan or troubled outsiders are looking to corporations as a way to get China to readdress its relationship with Tibet. All these efforts, however, fall to deaf ears. The corporations simply act helpless by reminding people that they are after all just corporations with limited power or that their support for the Olympics is separate from China’s political decisions.

 

Their behaviour in China raises the question of just how much responsibility and power these corporations actually have. They are definitely powerful enough to be doing things that the government should be doing, like improving health care, educational systems or cutting carbon emissions. As they become more sensitive to the issues that society prioritises, these corporations continually push the boundaries of their responsibility and, since they belong to a competitive market where keeping promises holds a lot more importance than it does for a politician, they actually get things done. In developing countries, this works wonders as the corporations compensate for the governments’ incompetence. An international deregulated and privatized market has enabled corporations to be powerful enough to “fill the void” that governments leave, as stated in the Economist, which isn’t necessarily a negative thing because the ends matter more than the means – at least things are getting done. Furthermore, governments can use corporations as ideal, successful models when planning their own strategies and policies.

 

So, the problem doesn’t lie in the amount of power they hold, it falls onto their definition of responsibility. According to corporations, ‘responsibility’ means improving or reducing their impact on their surroundings – something more than their legal requirements. That ‘something more’, however, is determined simply by the shareholders’ interests meaning corporations end up acting hypocritically by addressing some issues and acting oblivious to the others. For example, in the late 1990’s, PepsiCo pulled all its investments out of Burma due to its concerns with the Human Rights issues there. Yet, other similar corporations refuse to even threaten to withdraw from the 2008 Olympics as a way to pressure China and its Human Rights issues. Why the discrepancy? Simply because the Olympics bring a lot more benefits and profits for the sponsors than Burma and its ailing economy would have.

 

It wasn’t about the Human Rights issues; it was about their reputation and bank accounts.