Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Lillian Holt: Well I would hope so. And I think that there are pockets of it around. It's very interesting because this whole event I believe is sponsored by Allianz. I saw the message from the CEO in relation to this event and I think it's very responsible to have an event like this where people can share and participate all the hues of humanity around world. I think that perhaps that there's a consciousness creeping into corporations. I mean you can even talk about Bill Gates in relation to his philanthropic duties and I hope he sets an example, sets the sea, for others. Because corporations can be very isolated and profit driven and very alienating that they can only be about the arena of profit for other people. But I hold great hope that corporate responsibility will come to the fore, given the fact that it only needs a few people to set the example. So I think all things are possible. For me to say anything else would be to say that there is no hope. And I think ultimately it can be much more corporate responsibility, social responsibility. I think it's absolutely possible and hopefully it will become more prevalent.

by Lillian Holt

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Livingstone Maluleke: Yes, one would say corporate social responsibility is possible. Corporate, meaning doing things together. Cooperate in a corporate world where we do things together socially. It is possible because it means we put – share ideas to have an idea of groups together. This will be able to have the system of inclusivity, consultation, which will be another vehicle and, at the same time, this will need to be as much transparent as possible. So, it is possible for social corporate for social responsibility.

by Livingstone Maluleke

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Mae-Wan Ho: Well, it is possible if they change their dominant mindset and we are not very -- you see the problem is that the corporations are responsible to no one. They are owned by no one. Their sole responsibility are to their shareholders and their shareholders want to maximize their earnings and the share, the market value of their shares. And so how can you have, it's an oxymoron really to think that under the dominant system, there could be something called real corporate responsibility. We can hope to curb it in, to curb the excesses of corporations, but we can not really talk about corporate responsibility.

by Mae-Wan Ho

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Mahsa Shekarloo: Sure, to a certain extent. But to be socially responsible as a corporate – corporation, you need to be willing to, for example, be okay with reduction of profit margins. You need to consider other factors that may not maximize efficiency, that may not maximize the profit margin. Absolutely, it’s possible. But I think for complete social responsibility, there probably has to be a larger restructuring of the corporate system. -- And I think people’s governments, laws, need to create that incentive for corporations to be more socially responsible.

by Mahsa Shekarloo

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Mark Benecke: Corporate social responsibility is, of course, possible if the corporate structure thinks that it helps to gain their corporate goals. So, if a company thinks that it helps to invest a little bit in an altruistic way, of course altruism doesn't exist, it's just a way to get a better image or to get help from the outside, to reach your goals, then yes, they will do it. So, if a society wants their companies to have more social responsibility, meaning to be a little bit more altruistic, then the company will have to profit from that. That's a basic principle of biology. You don't help others if you don't gain a profit from that. That is a social illusion. Even people, or even companies who seem to invest a lot of money into their employees and social structures and so on, they do it a little bit for cultural values, but mostly they do it to keep efficiency high. So yes, social responsibility is possible, but it has to help the corporate goals and currently most companies' goal is to earn money, which is not a bad thing because it's a product of evolution: gaining power and wealth. As long as you don't step out of that system and just look at it from the outside, like most of us here around the table do. But not everybody can afford this or wants to step outside.

by Mark Benecke

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Martin Almada: Yes the corporate social resposibility can and has to be undertaken, uniting all the persons conscious of the current world situation and inspiring to fight for full employment, food, health, accommodation and education. Each of us can do something for it but the big change will come as a united force based on every community and group. In every part of the world a step forward has been done in this direction. The global social forum is an expression of it a space of encounter that helps us to continue this way. This gathering here in Berlin is already an expression of the existance of a corporate social responsibility.

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Masami Saionji: I think it is important and possible that corporations bear the social responsibilities. Returning profits of corporations to society is natural activity of human being or the way of living for human society. Until now the profits of corporations have remained within them, spent them all on themselves and never returned to society. However, the days are changed and the consciousness level of each of us heightens in this century. Head of society, that is, head of companies returns their profits to society. Such corporations with love for all mankind can make profits and wealth naturally through returning back gratitude of society for their returning profits to society, even though they do not intend to make profits. I think the communication between society and corporation is very important because the self-interest profits and the selfish usage of them cause conflicts in society. In order to harmonize with society, corporations need to return profits to it and do a service for it.

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: Well, there are many things happening in this modern world with modern technology, everything. But, today's children, I remember when I grew up, I used to use my hand, I used to go in the open air, play and listen to music, listen to [inaudible]. I think that it’s modern communication, internet, and everything is very -- today the children are not using their hand, they are not -- they don’t know, they don’t know, they are confused. I think education system should be enrich a child. Okay, you need all the modern technology, but you should never forget your own heritage, use your hand to able to see, look the world what is happening. And, I think eduction system should give children more space. And I think children are mechanically growing up. They are not using, they are not looking in the world, they are not hearing, I think that’s so important. Education system, I think, should give a child to grow to be happy, to look, smile too -- their eyes should be sparkling, they are sitting in the computer and they don’t know. I mean, I think the education system, today’s child they are becoming more mechanical. They don’t using many things. I think that it needs to change, it needs to have use their thinking, use their brain, use their creativity more, more and explore more. And also to know other part of the world, the people, the culture, and it’s very important, because children are the future of the world. So, they need to be knowing, knowing, and that knowledge, yes it’s important, high technology and everything. Also to read books, to listen music, to have everything. I think it’s very important eduction system. So, to introduce some of the old tradition and old heritage and have a child to see the world. It’s very important, look and hear.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Mayank Mehta: I think it is possible. I spoke about that in response to some of the questions that I’ve mentioned earlier. So let’s again, instead of thinking of large corporations, think of the individuals that make up the populations. Is a person working in large corporation, perhaps the giant oil company which they have often being blame for many disasters in this world, natural drainage and destruction of the resources? That person in the day time, during the job, will make decisions which will make sure that the company wins, gets the contracts and develops oil fields or whatever it may be, which maybe harmful for the planet. In the long run, harmful for the well being of the children, and infect their own well being. But by the same token when the person goes home later, at the end of the day, the person of course will make sure that the children are happy, the person will do anything he or she can to make sure the children are getting good education, they have a good life, they will be healthy, they get organic food; stuff like that. So, clearly, the individuals that make up the corporation are perhaps, often times, living this fragmented life. And we have to ask the question, why? Why would the person make a decision in the evening which is in the favor of cleaner planet and make decisions in the daytime which are against it? And once again, the answer comes down to the thought that, well, somebody or the other, perhaps I’m thinking this is how the thinking might go in person’s mind, that somebody or the other is going to develop that oil field, somebody or the other is going to drain those resources, and if I don’t do it I won’t get the money, my children won’t have the resources and I would suffer. So why not go for it and take it. And what’s the big harm of my little action? And that’s where the systems fails that these people are unable to see that one little misbehavior that we commit, can be committed by a whole planet and then it becomes a big thing. And the only solution, once again, is to educate the individual without in chastising the corporations which we must do as well, of course, but we have to begin at the individual and make sure the individuals themselves are taught the long term consequences of their behavior and that it is not just one person.

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Adam, I don't know. It's certainly worth fighting for. We need to pretend that it's possible; how about that? You know, I'm a lawyer and I work with lawyers; lawyers whose job it is to enforce corporate social responsibility; lawyers who sue corporations to make them accountable for putting toxic substances into our drinking water and into the environment; lawyers who sue companies who make cigarettes and other socially irresponsible products; lawyers who sue companies who manufacture things that blow up and hurt people or don't work as they should. Now, the odd thing is, that this plaintiff's lawyer group has been stigmatized and in your own state of California, people, people who show up for jury service actually show up with the idea that there are too many lawsuits and too many frivolous lawsuits and too many people asserting their rights and that something needs to be done about it. And not only is that happening, but in state legislatures about across the country powerful corporate interests are shutting down interest to access to lawyers and access to the courts. The same thing is going on in the Congress of the United States. The corporate kleptocrats that are stealing from you and from me, from shareholders and from workers, are benefiting from congressional legislation that makes it harder to sue them and harder for lawyers to get a decent paycheck out of the fact that they spend years involving themselves in this kind of litigation. The attacks on labor unions, the attacks on the pensions of workers through these rigged bankruptcies that we're seeing particularly in the airline industry, all that, all of that, is a fruitful field or fruitful fields, within which to conduct important kinds of social struggle, to join with workers and consumers and victims of faulty products and victims of pollution and to wage the campaign against corporate greed and its consequences. Corporate social responsibility is not possible through the sort of enlightened self interest of allegedly beneficent corporate management. Corporate social responsibility is possible because people are going to organize and insist upon it. So, welcome to the fight, Adam.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Michael P. Totten: This is a long standing problem. I worked in the US Congress for Congresswoman Claudine Schneider from Rhode Island who brought an extraordinary set of values to that Congress that I found in very few of the male members. She was among just a handful of women in an overwhelmingly male bastion. This is changing, we are seeing, at least in the United States, more legislative leaders certainly at the city and state level, and slowly at the national level. We are also seeing very slowly, too slowly, a number of corporate leaders that are women. But the question is an absolute one that there are such values that women bring to their analysis and assessment of problems. They are looking at solutions very different from men that are sorely needed in deliberative processes everywhere. This turns on a whole range of reasons why it doesn’t happen from the citizenry that doesn’t demand it, to the multiple roles that women play, of course rearing children, and it requires a reshaping not only our communities and cities to make it more accessible for women, and families and husbands to play more engaged roles rather than having the separation of work from home, or schools from home, or neighborhood to home. We need to be able to have a more seamless process and spatial lay out of our cities so that women can be more participative, and by that process be engaged in more of the social decision-making. I think with the emergence of the collapse in the cost of computers and the connectivity, there is really no reason that there can’t be more participation occurring in local communities that have national prominence. The idea of virtual conversations going on, because you have wall sized videos that look as if you ran into another person’s room, or two people--[Audio Ends].

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Mohammed Arkoun: I'ts possible but you have to consider many conditions hard to meet. There is a necessity to introduce a company culture. I consider as company culture the knowledge of the culture of all these workers inside the company who have different cultures because of their different cultural roots. All these workers have to understand the way to organise their participation in the company to develop a corporate responsability inside the company but also a responsability of an insertion of the company in the general structure of the society and the other sectors of society as the educative sector, the sector of scientific research and the political sector. All this has to be considered by an association of members of the company to sensitise them to the connection of the company to all sectors in the society within the company exists, but also to sensitise them to the relation of the products of the company with the society, to develop a commerce of exchange affected by a responsability vis-à-vis the other countries who are not able to compete with the big companys which are better equipped and better developped which are the countries of the occident, which, on their part, do not admit their responsibility to develop such a company culture which is receptive enough to all these problems which raises the construction of a new citizenship in the societes. today

by Mohammed Arkoun

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Mohau Pheko: Look, I think that the sort of corporate responsibility that we are looking at today is minimal. It's not enough, it's still full of patronage and it is not the sort of responsibility that matches the sort of wealth that is being created by corporations. I think in the world today, it has become essential that to me if you create an enormous amount of wealth, there is much more responsibility upon you to give away or to assist others in the world. So, I find that the way that corporate responsibility is being done today is done in a very welfarist sort of structure that does not really engage the communities and does not encourage innovation and really does not encourage new ways of doing things. So, for me, corporate responsibility is beyond just giving just the dollar or matching the dollar grant. It is really about making sure that the wealth and the corporations that we run are part of communities, they are not exploitative of communities and that's for me is responsibility. They are not monopolistic in the sense that they control every single industry in the marketplace, and that they do not kill off innovation and shatter competition that in fact find very instrumental ways of supporting initiatives and communities that can help communities bloom, that can help communities liberate those living on the margins to become much more than people who are being handed out a welfare grant, so to speak. So, I think that corporate responsibility has to be deconstructed and that wealth, that enormous wealth has to be shared in a much more distributive and a higher percentage of what is being currently given.

by Mohau Pheko

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Monira Rahman: Well, when the question is about the profit, it’s important to incorporate the social responsibility and making profits; the profits for the society, the profits for social development. It's not just a profit for the group of people or the company and in that way it's possible to have this corporate social responsibility, but in [] structure. So obviously it's difficult when capitalism is only promoting making profits, not working for the social cause for social development, then it is not possible. It's not a piecemeal that the corporate sectors are actually taking isolated incident or ad hoc incident initiatives for corporate social responsibility. It's the question about planned and structured initiatives for the corporate to take social responsibility and use their resources for social development causes. Therefore, it is important to have a system and structure and policy from the state's party to control the corporate profit making. So if it is like the [status] possible for establishing this accountability of the corporate, for their social responsibility, then it is possible.

by Monira Rahman

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Nadja Halilbegovich: I think corporate social responsibility is not only possible, it is absolutely necessary because we cannot keep depleting our natural resources just for the sake of growing. In fact, it is ridiculous because on one hand we are gaining and one hand we are losing something that cannot be gained back if destroyed completely. So, I think that corporate accountability and responsibility is absolutely necessary for sustainability of our planet. Also, apart from the environmental accountability, we need to hold corporations responsible for the way they treat their workers and treat people. People need to be respected. They need to work in environment that is humane and fair and they need to be fairly paid. So, I think that we cannot keep going like this; depleting our resources and violating basic human rights of workers in order to grow. So absolutely, corporate responsibility, social responsibility is not only possible, it is absolutely necessary.

by Nadja Halilbegovich

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Neela Marikkar: Yes. It is increasingly important, and actually it's a very vital part of what needs to be done. I think corporations have to start looking beyond their own profits and their bottom lines. I think corporations have to give back to the communities that they have been nurtured by, and who they have profited from. I think not only in terms of corporate social responsibility, I think corporations have to look at the role of peace-building in countries where there is conflict. I think corporations have a great deal of influence with governments, and policy-makers, international communities. So, I think, corporate sector can no longer be so insular, working within their own communities. I think they have to look at a much greater role, especially in countries, in developing countries, in countries that need their involvement and engagement in finding solutions, because the corporate sector is about results. And I think therefore there is great opportunity for corporate sector to play a much greater role in the lives of a community, in the lives of conflict-ridden countries as well. So, I think corporate social responsibility is a good beginning, but there is a much greater role for corporate sector to play.

by Neela Marikkar

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Oliviero Toscani: Of course social responsibility, there is a responsibility. Now they are responsible for what is going on in the world. Corporation are responsible for what is happening. Corporation are the working force of the world. They are responsible, but the problem is now they are responsible of a negative situation. The point is that they can’t put together profit and social responsibility. They cannot. I’ve been working for company, I’ve been trying hard, but at the end at corporation everything is allowed. You can – they can exploit, cheat the labor, it – nobody knows, nobody really care. And the major responsibility of a corporation is profit, still economic profit, it is not social profit. So, if social profit will produce economic profit then probably corporation will be – will do that. But the major point of a corporation is the economy. And until those managers, those unhuman, those sub-human. as I call them, the managers call them sub-human. You know, the world is divided into two category – the creative people and the non-creative, the human and the sub-human. Corporations are directed, are managed by sub-human people, those managers they don’t really care about social, they care about profit.

by Oliviero Toscani

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Oscar Olivera: I don’t understand the question. I imagine that if it means, if we can establish between all of us a social resposibility for [] a new world, i believe that you not only can. You have to establish a social responsibility between the peoples, between the northern, the southern communities. I believe that it is not only about a social responsability of isolated peoples, but a social responsability of the entire humanity altogether to save our planet, to save our lives, to preserve them for the future generations. It’s the supranational corporations, which are destroying the world, essentially those corporations, where you live, Adam, in California, in the United States, those corporations which are killing humanity, which are killing our planet. And i believe that it is our responsibility, your’s as well as that of your society and of the societies of the peoples in the south, to fight for stopping this crime against humanity.

by Oscar Olivera