I floated the idea in my Advertising Age column two weeks ago that corporate responsibility was silly and, worse, ineffective. Then I had my head handed to me in the next issue via a spirited riposte from someone in the good works racket.
Though I've forced myself to consider his many, though all squishy proof points about stakeholder groups "whose increasing expectations, strong voices and behavior are changing the game," I can't get past my original thesis:
Corporate responsibility is neither corporate, nor responsible. Discuss.
Capitalism has no morality inherent in it. Innovation and efficiency have no moral dimensions, not to mention the idea of survival of the fittest. Nature is chocked full of examples of species torturing or wiping eachother out in order to see another dewy sunrise.
Companies are in the business of staying in business, which means doing their best to put competitors out of business. Markets and regulations exist to define the boundaries for those activities - assassinations aren't allowed, they can't freely fill the waterways with radioactive waste, and employees can't be kept chained to their looms, for instance -- but these are all activities companies have done and would do again if not compelled otherwise.
And I'm OK with that.
Ultimately, businesses are responsible to the people who keep them in business. Purchasers. Shareholders. Neighbors who pass legislation enabling or limiting business practices. If companies act irresponsibly, people won't give them their money, or won't allow them to function in their backyards. If companies are responsible to their consumers, everybody is happy.
So the idea of corporate responsibility being any more (or different, or separate) than this is, in my humble opinion, a sham that's just shy of an outright lie. No wonder trust in corporations is at an all-time low.
The good works racket yields branding that claims responsibility, when the reality of business is usually nothing close to it It's empty symbolism; I called it the psychic offset racket in my essay. It offers companies a get-out-of-jail-free card when the real challenge -- and opportunity -- would be to be tell...and sell...the truth.
No sourcing code or spot inspection program changes the fact that excruciatingly poor people work in shockingly bad conditions to make many of the apparel products we happily purchase. Oil companies can spend millions on ads promoting some nonsense conversation about our energy future, but it doesn't obscure the real money they dedicate to keeping us addicted to fossil fuels.
My critic quoted many qualitative examples of opinion and awareness of social issues as reason for companies to consider good works programs. I don't question those surveys and polls...I just don't think they're relevant. Unless people vote'with their spending, it's all just a lot of talk. Which is why good works programs are usually enough; it's talk answered with more talk.
Blah blah blah.
I'm waiting for the article in Advertising Age riffing on my column as a starting point, not a perspective to get countered, and advocating for communicators to stand up and tell their employers that glossing over the reality of business is not a communications or branding strategy.
It's a lie.
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