J.R.R. Tolkein cautioned in The Hobbit that “it doesn’t do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations if you happen to live near one.” For those who value private property, unfettered competition and the principle of taxation with representation, wake up and smell the new generation of power-hungry socialists hiding within a Trojan Dragon called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
When the media hype and spin are unraveled, CSR is about business executives spending corporate capital on programs and policies that contribute nothing to profitability and, in some cases, harm their companies’ bottom lines. These are neither government mandated, nor shareholder-sanctioned expenditures. Most often, they amount to pay-offs for the pet projects and policies of non-government organizations (NGOs) who are leading the charge to shove CSR down our collective gullets. These NGOs are accountable to no one. Their objective is to become global private regulators. Their ultimate goal is the power to dictate how we live our lives.
Why are these anti-business NGOs preaching the gospel of CSR? The simple answer is that they failed to advance their socialist agenda at the ballot box, and in the court of public opinion. They know that the next best option is to sneak into global corporations led by executives who talk like Rambo but act like Bambi when threatened with boycotts and other marketplace shenanigans. The CSR evangelists are taking their cue from the La Cosa Nostra playbook—usurp power by means of subversion, intimidation and extortion. They employ a centuries-old protection racket to extract concessions from vulnerable companies, then move on to their competitors, customers and suppliers raising their demands for tribute whenever possible.
Why do corporate executives participate in this capitalist equivalent of treason? Some are slaves to the myth that good PR—at any cost—is the Holy Grail of successful business management. Others want to position their competitors as corporate villains who don’t give a wit about human rights or the environment. Many are trying to appease the activist attack groups and their allies in the media. I offer three words to these modern-day Neville Chamberlains: Shame on you!
Economist Milton Friedman wrote that some “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 responsibility for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers.” Friedman added, “In fact, they are... 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.”
At its nub, CSR represents the convergence of two discordant political doctrines—corporate socialism and the privatization of regulation. Mindful of this distasteful doctrinal stew, Gary Johns, a one-time Aussie Labor Party MP, astutely describes CSR as “a left-wing conspiracy dressed up as a right-wing conspiracy.”
I believe the next CSR issue du jour will be radioactive. With high petrol prices, policymakers have started talking about resurrecting nuclear power. Advocates of this much-maligned technology have even recruited Patrick Moore to help their cause. Moore is a founding father of Greenpeace who left the group when political extremists took control. Needless to say, Greenpeace and other anti-nuke zealots are apoplectic. Watch as they exploit the Corporate Shakedown Racket (CSR) to browbeat business leaders into opposing nuclear power. Will the corporate Nevilles head for the nearest cameras to yammer about meltdowns? You bet. They have become very adept at kissing the hindquarters of Rainbow Warriors when they dock nearby.
It boggles the mind to think that any self-respecting business executive would pay lip service to the CSR movers, shakers and spinners, given their basic belief that corporations should become public property, while leaving the financial risks to the private investors.
Millions, if not billions, of corporate dollars have already been diverted from shareholders and redistributed to others under the guise of CSR. Every dollar represents a hidden tax on unsuspecting investors. Talk about taxation without representation. To add insult to injury, the naïve business executive who genuflects at the altar of CSR is aiding and abetting the activist NGOs as they seek to dictate business policies based on their vision of what is sustainable, equitable and fair for the rest of us.
How can this lunacy be stopped? How can we slay this Trojan Dragon? Take a cue from that well-known Midwestern philosopher, Al Capone, who once said that “you can achieve a lot more with a smile, a kind word and a gun, than with a smile and a kind word.” In my opinion, the most effective weapon against CSR is sunshine. Get the facts about CSR out in the open for all to see—including the 100 million Americans invested in the stock market.
What shareholders need is information about how their investments are being shanghaied, how their rights are being subverted, and how their money is being used to undermine free enterprise. This is advocacy of the kind employed by the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF), which uses its status as an institutional shareholder to persuade companies to focus on increasing shareholder value and profits rather than vainly trying to appease outside activists.
What’s my bottom line? More of this focused sunshine is desperately needed to kill CSR. American investors and corporate executives must be reminded of Winston Churchill’s admonition that “socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent value is the equal sharing of misery.”
With over three decades in the communications business, Nick Nichols specializes in crisis management and risk communications.
