Socially Responsible Business Practices
Eric Mitchell
5/7/12
The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility
Abstract
This article considers social responsibility to businesses to be a bind between doing what’s right for the community, and doing what’s right for your business. The question of this article is, can companies do well by doing good? The idea is that companies have a responsibility to do what’s right for the public. Most of the time doing what is right reflects profits for the company.
The article talks about socially responsible business practices being irrelevant because it is all an illusion, and potentially a dangerous one. The whole reasoning behind socially responsible business practices being irrelevant is that in most cases, doing what is best for society means sacrificing something from your own company (profits). An example would be pollution caused by manufacturing. Reducing the manufacturing pollution is costly and would put a dent into their profits. Poverty is another example. Again, companies would have a dent in their profits if they paid their workers more and charged less for their product.
This article finds the ultimate solution and that solution is government regulation. The government has the power to enforce regulations which in the end means that there is no need to rely on any ones good intentions. Although this is the ultimate solution, it also has a downside to it- reducing public welfare. This would be caused because of its cost or inefficiency. One other alternative is self regulation. The chances are slim to see this happen, though, because companies are unlikely to voluntarily act in the public interest if they are in any way or form caring about their profits or shareholders.
Finally, all socially responsible business practices do is put a financial burden on the company at hand and force them to make calculations. The calculation is based around how much will the company loose.
My Opinion
My opinion on this is that it is very much true. This
5/7/12
The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility
Abstract
This article considers social responsibility to businesses to be a bind between doing what’s right for the community, and doing what’s right for your business. The question of this article is, can companies do well by doing good? The idea is that companies have a responsibility to do what’s right for the public. Most of the time doing what is right reflects profits for the company.
The article talks about socially responsible business practices being irrelevant because it is all an illusion, and potentially a dangerous one. The whole reasoning behind socially responsible business practices being irrelevant is that in most cases, doing what is best for society means sacrificing something from your own company (profits). An example would be pollution caused by manufacturing. Reducing the manufacturing pollution is costly and would put a dent into their profits. Poverty is another example. Again, companies would have a dent in their profits if they paid their workers more and charged less for their product.
This article finds the ultimate solution and that solution is government regulation. The government has the power to enforce regulations which in the end means that there is no need to rely on any ones good intentions. Although this is the ultimate solution, it also has a downside to it- reducing public welfare. This would be caused because of its cost or inefficiency. One other alternative is self regulation. The chances are slim to see this happen, though, because companies are unlikely to voluntarily act in the public interest if they are in any way or form caring about their profits or shareholders.
Finally, all socially responsible business practices do is put a financial burden on the company at hand and force them to make calculations. The calculation is based around how much will the company loose.
My Opinion
My opinion on this is that it is very much true. This
Cited: http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html