Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Fred Matser: That, absolutely, is the situation. The point is, of course we live in an existing structure and the bottom line for me would be, are the existing systems willing to give up certain powers that they have monopolized for themselves and are they honestly willing to share that with the people in the so-called lower level. Instead of excluding people, including people, allowing everybody on the different levels in society and in the companies to give them voice, to have them speak out their opinions, their feelings, and to take them seriously, and at least do that in full respect, to be aware when we are the leaders that we, in a way, would need to give up, to take the power over other people, if we are in those positions, and have the patience to sit together and around certain teams form groups, on the different levels to address issues that relate to how we can create a more functional society. So, indeed to wrap it up, yes, it is possible. But, indeed, we have to dramatically change our systems. And if the willingness is not there, on the level where now the power is concentrated, it is very difficult. So, I would say to those people in powerful positions introspect, sit together with those that are not in those positions, and see how we can help to create more functional systems of corporate social responsibility.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Galsan Tschinag: Yes, it's possible. We know some very good examples. The Swabian Robert Bosch has proofed that wealth and humanity, profit and responsibility not necessarily have to be contradictions. And I can also refer to Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy who wasn't only a well-known writer but also an incredibly rich big landowner. He gave away everything he had for the education and freedom of his farmers.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Geert Lovink: I've got a friend in Amsterdam, Evelyn [] and she's doing a lot of research into this field of corporate social responsibility. It is a very special jargon. It's a discourse that came up in the '80s and '90s and is now spreading across the globe and most corporations use it, talk about it. For me it's pure ideology. So it is manufactured by PR firms and it is used as a tool, as a weapon, in the media battles; think about Nike, think about all the complaints about computer waste and the computer firms and the way they are implicated in the waste production of toxic waste and the dumping of toxic waste in poor countries. So, for me, we have to really focus on this issue as a media issue. We cannot look beyond that and say, well, if companies improve a little bit, they can get a logo on their product saying that their social responsibility is all right. I would, myself, not go for such standards, code of conduct that go with this rhetoric. Instead, I would attack the rhetoric itself and show who are behind the manufacturing of these slogans and these ideas; because there is in fact very little known about the whole PR branding of such issues. There's even less known about how large corporations are in fact at war with activists

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, responsibility, social responsibility, corporation and social corporation, is not a question if it is possible or is not possible. Without social corporation in our system, we are dead people that walk. It is not the question, it is not the question of possible or not possible. We will see in our system of life that we create ourselves. When it is corporation, we find solutions. When it is not corporation, we found war. We fight. This we can see it. This is not a statement of it can happen or will happen. No, now, in this moment that we are speaking, all of us together, a result of not corporate responsibility is in the surface. We don’t have another choice to corporate. Doesn’t mean that you must give up nationality, religion, political position, nothing to do with; continue to be your way. But always remember that we are responsible for ourself, and each one of us is responsible for another, another person. This is -- without this the society will not function. This we can call mathematic.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Whether it’s possible or not, that’s a real debate. But from -- in my own perspective, I think it is possible. It is a thing that needs to be tried. The corporate world, I’ve been responsible for a lot of things related especially to the destruction of the environment. They are the ones who dump affluent in the water bodies from which we need to have water, fresh water. They are the people who pollute the environment. And corporate responsibility in this case as I see it is that, they need to be responsible. They need to pay for what they are doing. They need to pay for polluting the environment. They need to pay for overexploiting resources at the expenses of other people. So, it is important that they do business in an ethical and moral way. As it stands rightly, a business is being done in an amoral way, immoral and amoral way. There is no ethics in business, but they need to be responsible. Once they become responsible, the world they step to be accountable to their behavior. Then we talk about corporate responsibility. They should pay for the cleaning of their mess. They should pay for the pollution they do. They should pay for the resources which they exploit from the environment. In that case, it becomes the social responsibility. It comes their responsibility to really make sure that this well, these resources are essential resources that help or that assist almost everyone under the sun. In fact, because what it is the corporate world seems to be selfish and is actually commercializing everything and at the expense for majority.

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: Yes, it is possible. But, are they sincere about it? Do they want to be socially responsible? There is an increasing interest among the corporates to relate with the society that it should not be just a public gimmick. How can a corporate be socially responsible if it is not able to provide products that do not exploit the natural resources in an unsustainable manner? It must not be just a packaging. It must be part of the production processes. It must be part of the distribution practices. You can’t do a charity of social process of development. And it must be with an intent of really being responsible, not superficial. I wish the corporates see that way, that they have more to gain by being responsible socially at all levels of production and distribution in a way that less destruction of natural resources happens, rather no destruction of natural resources is encouraged.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: Businesses are able to take over social responsibility, but they don't do it. I don't believe that their ideology really allows for this. Maybe as a kind of luxury. This is due to the fact that businesses are under pressure in competition. Competition is a game with a negative result, a game with winners and losers, but always with a higher number of losers. Taking over responsibility means playing a different game with a positive result. The personal advantage is going to be the advantage of others and via a detour this returns to you and turn out to be your own advantage. A surrounding, which offers advantages is important for my own development.

by Hans-Peter Dürr

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Harry Wu: It is complicated and inconsistent. How is our possibility? There is corporate social responsibility rather than not. But how the corporate responsibility is divided is worth discussing. It is not simple to make a conclude. What is corporate social responsibility? How great is it now? How much should we assume? How different are the various societies in the world？These are worth troubling out.

by Harry Wu

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Helena Norberg-Hodge: I would argue that the idea that individual corporations are going to choose to behave in a responsible way is little short of madness. It's a sign that people have not understood the rules of the global marketplace. The rules today are essentially the deregulation, the removal of regulations that protect society and the environment. That’s the global marketplace, liberated from any constraints that support the environment and that support human beings, human rights. So now having deregulated, having removed any of the regulations that would lead to ethical behavior to ask individual businesses to behave ethically is little short of ludicrous. If it is our desire to see corporations behave responsibly, why don’t we do the easy thing which is to create rules by which corporations need to behave ethically, need to behave as though the planet is limited, as though resources are limited, and as though there is respect for human life? If we create a level playing field, one in which every business has to adhere to certain rules, we have created a situation where responsibility is possible. We will then also need to ensure that the watchdogs in terms of really seeing where their business behavior is responsible need to be empowered at the local and regional level, not just at the international level. This is how people on the ground can actually observe and see if behavior is ethical. At the moment in the global marketplace, it is very easy for a corporation to tell consumers on one side of the world that their production is ethical without any accountability or visibility. It is very easy to spend billions on green washing without actually changing the modes of production. This system of long distance and of globalized economic activity is what lies behind a system that leads automatically to unethical behavior.

by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Homero Aridjis: You cannot effect a corporate social responsibility while there is complicity inside the gouvernement and the corporation to exploit a human being. The composed values of citizens for a corporation aren't the moral values when this doesn't correspond to the commercial values.

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: Yes, corporate social responsibility is possible but it depends on corporate willingness to cut some profit. To build hospitals, to sell software is okay, is fine. It’s fine with me. You could say it’s responsible. There’s no harm done. So yes, corporate social responsibility is possible. But sometimes corporate social responsibility is also bullshit, is some kind of make another brand, building another brand, reinforce a brand. But it can be done. It is possible.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: I don't believe corporate social responsibility is possible. I believe personal social responsibility is possible and happens, but it's the people. And I don't think a corporation is made up of people. So it can do great harm and it can do great good, and it can be the way it's forced into behavior is through affecting the people. There's nothing to affect there. It's an inanimate object that's created to-- the success is tied to a bottom line. And even in socially responsible investing, what we see is that people think that if you give to a socially responsible company it'll grow, you can do well and do good. But maybe being socially responsible is not having as big a bottom line, is not feeling that you have to be in the culture of a 10% return every year. But we're not there, because the corporations that even call themselves socially responsible are bought up in a system about growth, growth, growth, growth, growth instead of people who are willing to invest their money non-profitly for something to grow. What about a corporation that's job was to find solutions to create sustainability and that meant not huge profits? But we're not there yet, because that will take some very courageous people. It won't take a socially responsible corporation. It will take individuals whose depth of understanding of what social responsibility means are willing to take the courageous step of not having something that has an enormous return on investment, that their return on investment value is the social value that that company, corporation has brought. So I don't think there's such a thing as a socially responsible corporation. I think there are socially responsible people and hopefully they become more and more socially responsible, hopefully that that culture of social responsibility, of people who are working within corporations that are still invested in capitalism loosen their identity with that and create more change.

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

John Gage: In short, no. That is to say, the corporation and disembodied legal entity formed for certain specific functions, a functional thing that enables the law, enables flow of money and flow of responsibility if a disaster occurs, the disembodied corporate form is created by human beings for purposes of production. The simplest models of production depend at the end on the prices of what is an input and the prices of what is an output. In other words, the corporate forms are created for the purpose of providing goods and services at the cheapest possible prices to meet a certain specific set of demands by human beings, these are products. In the calculation, it’s abbreviated simplified form of cost and price. In that revenues and profits, in that simple calculus, there is no room today for the addition of happiness, welfare, richness of life of those that work with long-term implications of a particular product [that’s cost] in the environment, both in making it and using it, in the complete lifecycle costs of these objects that the corporate mechanism creates. Altering the form of accounting alters what today you would call corporate social responsibility. Altering the form in which the responsibility of a corporation, not simply to make a product, but to all those that work there to put their life effort, their knowledge, their capabilities into that corporate, adding that extra dimension is what makes the phrase corporate social responsibility meaningful. So, today, when I hear people say corporate social responsibility, it often means nothing more than a simple foundation, putting some money into small projects where the employees work. In reality, the much deeper responsibility of a corporation is to fully account for its weight upon the environment, its weight upon and inspiration for the lives of those that work in the corporation, its long-term responsibility to the families of those who work in the corporation, and its long-term advantage in recognizing the contribution of creative human beings to the process of fabrication, manufacture, creation, that in fact is the point of the corporation in the first place.

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: Corporate social responsibility is possible; in fact it's very easy to achieve, because corporations are [dejoury] institutions. They're created by law, by states. They're not natural institutions. So the values that are infused in a corporation are values that can be expressed very explicitly and positively. So, right now, the main value in the corporation is simply profit, and that's the bottom line in evaluating the success or failure of a corporation. But there are other values that could be included in that. Such as its environmental responsibility, such as - well, I mean we have laws relating to child labor, for example, if we have - in most of the industrialized world, and there's laws about safety in the workplace, and there's laws about how shareholders have rights of information, and corporations have to account to their shareholders. So, there are high levels of social responsibility that corporations have, but their responsibility is only to - is mainly to the shareholders. So if we took that principle of accountability and brought in other stakeholders, the corporation would be more socially responsible. If we put in values of protecting human rights and protecting the environment, the corporation would be more responsible. So, bringing the corporation into becoming socially responsible is not difficult at all. It’s redefining to whom, and for whom, and why, and for what, they’re going to be responsible. That it’s a matter of changing laws, since corporations are only creatures of law.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: A company is a company, responsibility is responsibility, society is society. Longing for connections between these ultimately hermetic states is completely barbarous and irrelevant. If an affair is suitable for itself, the responsibility and the society are suitable as well, everything will be consistent with absolute anti-harmony. That means to be human. Ups and downs, mountains and valleys, storm and anti-storm. Life is a ship without rail and this is good. One is not able to cling to anything in a storm. The ship arrives at shores again and again where it could shatter. We are in the ship or we are flushed away or we shatter. It always is our fault, never the fault of others. The responsibility of society has a responsibility of society, but we do not know it. An affair is as Nautilus, as a submarine boat, as the realm of Captain Ahab. We go hunting, hunting is good; if we come into the mouth of Moby Dick, it is good and if we are eaten, it is good too - this all belongs to hunting. If you hunt, you can lose; if you hunt, the hunter can be killed - by the victim. Nobody knows who the hunter is, no one knows what the victim is. We do not know anything. This is humbleness and the relevance and responsibility of society. We are unknown to ourselves.

by Jonathan Meese

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Jonathan Stack: Yes. I mean it's possible. Look this event is proof that it's possible, but I think that it's a catchphrase for everything. I mean corporations are made of individuals, the people who run the corporation care to be socially responsible, then they will be socially responsible. It's not inherent to the corporate goals, not necessarily it's human beings, it gets back to the whole idea. Corporations are made up of human beings. They can be powerful, obviously they are. They are a very powerful way to organize and consolidate energy, but there are also -- they can be very negative just by when they don't care. Look at Union Carbide in India and many, many others. I don't think that, I personally have not chosen to work within the corporate structure because I like the freedom of being able to choose how to spend my time everyday and I have to answer to anybody on that kind of consistent structural way, and I think that allows me to be more "socially responsible." But, on the other hand, I greatly admire and depend upon the good social responsibility spirit of corporations or people who have worked and lived within corporations and have benefited from who have accumulated wealth through it. So, let's just say this. If corporations are not socially responsible, or that's not possible, then we got a problem. How can we get, how can we, I kind of think it of more like, how can I help to "liberate" the resources of corporations to help them apply more of their economic resources towards socially responsible activities? And I thoroughly believe that's possible and think of it ultimately as one of my responsibilities. If I can get a corporate American broadcaster to play some work on television that opens minds instead of closing it in small and big ways, then it's a little bit like subversiveness. You are sort of liberating space piece by piece. I can't contemplate totally of changing the system. So, I am just contemplating liberating the little pieces of that that I have some influence or some bit participation in.

by Jonathan Stack

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

José Manuel Prieto: Corporate social responsibility is attainable. I think the degree to which a community establishes connections, establishes transparency, allows [...], and that the members of this community monitor and keep an eye on the main subjects or the main movements. The ones who exercise this responsibility, the ones who are conscious of these degrees and conscious of this and conscious of the usefulness this can have. There are examples in which collective activity hat not been reached and this usually leads to moments of major urgency or of great danger. [...]

by José Manuel Prieto