Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Simon Retallack: If governments decide to make corporations behave in a socially or environmentally sustainable way, then corporations will have to behave in a socially and environmentally sustainable way. I think at the moment a lot of corporations give lip service to the corporate social responsibility agenda as it's called but actually it's superficial. It doesn't go very deep, and it’s a way of giving themselves good PR so that consumers' think it’s okay to carry on buying their products because they're actually quite nice; they're doing good things; but far too often corporations that engage in traditional corporate social responsible actions do so while pursuing their traditional core activity that has an enormously detrimental impact. For example, think of some of the oil companies who have green advertising campaigns that tell you how wonderfully green they are because they invest some money in renewable energies or research and development into new energy technologies while, at the same time, pumping vast volumes of oil from the ground and selling it to people to burn. Obviously, there's a conflict there. And that's why we shouldn't be counting on corporations to do the right thing. We should be putting pressure on governments to make sure that corporations do the right thing. And I think a part of that means requiring a change in the way that corporations and their CEO’s are responsible to deliver shareholder value on a quarterly basis that has only one criteria in mind, and that's financial return. I think they should be required to do more than deliver those profits. They should be required to do so in a way that respects people’s human social rights and their needs and the planet. That would be a truly socially responsible act. And governments are terrified of doing it because they think that corporations will resist, and they're probably right. And corporations and the media –- the big media companies and governments live in fear of being attacked by the media. So it isn’t something that's going to happen very easily, and I think the only way that it will happen is if there’s rising public awareness and public pressure on governments to make this happen.

by Simon Retallack

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Sohrab Mahdavi: I think corporations are designed. They are machines that are designed to make profit, and they would do anything, use any means to go beyond that. It has nothing to do with the people who run it. It has nothing to do with the individuals that are instrumental in finding it and creating it. They are making money and as such, they cannot be responsible in a sense that human being can be responsible, and by law, they are not held responsible the way the human being is responsible; even though by law, they have rights much like human beings. And, I think the discrepancy here is the main issue. Corporate responsibility is impossible simply because corporations have no conscience.

by Sohrab Mahdavi

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Song Kosal:

by Song Kosal

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Stephanie Robinson: I think that corporate responsibility is defiantly possible. I think that it is actually probable. Particularly if you understand that corporations in fact are not mere structures and entities, but corporations are made up of human beings and that’s part of what we also talk about. Communities and people make up corporations. If shareholders of corporations view profit as the predominant goal visive their ownership of a corporation then of course the likelihood of that corporation directing the entity towards positions that are antagonistic to the public good would increase. However if shareholders are somehow understand their ownership more so of positions that entail them of some form of collective responsibility then the likelihood of directing the corporate responsibility is possibly must take people to make it a reality is probably increased. So I think that if we continue to conceptualize the idea of corporations and therefore corporate responsibility in forms of entities that are cold and disconnected and not realize that corporations are made up of people and realize how you bring together the collective of the shareholders of these corporations and the responsibility is probably much more in tuned and we have a better opportunity to move that towards a position of increasing public will.

by Stephanie Robinson

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Steve Earle: Possible, but highly, highly unlikely. I think the system's major flaw is that every quarter, every three months, corporations have to account to stockholders and that requires--it encourages them--to show growth in each and every quarter when the truth of the matter is that the market ebbs and flows like a lot of other forces in the world. So it sort of puts the people that are running corporations in a position where cheating--to short stock prices--becomes attractive to them. It also puts them in a position where business decisions are made about overheard and about cost that affects human lives irregardless of any sort of social responsibility. Putting people out of their jobs, decimating entire communities. All of those considerations go on the back-burner to protect a stock price. So it's a flawed system. It does encourage the worst in us. So it is possible. I've seen a few corporations that I've run across just because someone involved in them had made a decision to be really, really vigilant about setting certain lines that they didn't cross in the process of managing a corporation. But it's possible, but it doesn't happen very often.

by Steve Earle

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Sulak Sivaraksa: Corporate social responsibility is possible, once people in those corporate -- big corporations feel that right now they are unethical, they are now reaping benefit of the people. And I am happy to say that there are some who feel that they must change fundamentally, not to be goody-goody like join the Rotary club or Lions, to help the poor in order that poor remain poor, and the corporation will have much more profits. I think some of the corporate leaders have realized that they must have more time for themselves. They must have time to breathe properly, to be spiritual, to be ethical, have time for their family, honor their colleagues; not fighting, not competing, people who are in the labor force equal to them, sit on the board with them, and regard their clients not to be fool, not to be cheated by cheap advertisement full of lies, and have time to honor the environment, not to exploit the environment. I think now people form themself into social inter-network, which is operating in my country, in Europe, in Asia. Although these are small groups, but I think small is beautiful, and somehow things could perhaps change, and be made perhaps have really corporate social responsibility for the corporation themselves as for larger society, and for the whole humanity and the planet earth. Everything is possible, if we are mindful enough, and put good intention with wisdom and compassion.

by Sulak Sivaraksa

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Susan George: Well, corporate social responsibility has become kind of a slogan. This is because corporations have wanted to be self-regulating. Their main dread is that they don’t want any outside body coming in and worrying about their affairs and making them do something they don’t want to do. So, their slogan has been, “We can take care of ourselves and we are socially responsible.” Now, some of them probably are, but the self-policing -- I am not quite sure what that means because they don’t always hold up in practice. I have been in seminars with corporate people on corporate social responsibility; and the first thing I say is, look, for me the first duty of a corporation is to pay its taxes or maybe some of them are; but statistically speaking, the amount of corporate taxes actually coming into state treasuries is going down every year, whether it's in the United States or whether it's in Europe, I don’t know about Japan, but the proportion of taxes companies are paying are being reduced all the time because there are so many tax savings, so many tax dodges that they can use, and, of course, they have battalions of lawyers explaining to them how to avoid paying taxes. So, some of the major corporations in the United States have not paid taxes for at least five years whereas they are profitable companies. So, it's individuals, and it's people who are rooted, it is people who have an address that are paying the taxes, it's consumers who are paying the taxes, but corporations are not necessarily being socially responsible, if the first duty of corporations is to share in the collective expenditures of their own communities. And, this is where I think the so called CSR really falls short. Some are making efforts ecologically. Some are making efforts for their workforces and for the communities that they live in, but so long as there are no legal constraints, I think, it will remain a slogan which is what it is now.

by Susan George

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Swami Pragyapad: Answertext will be available soon.

by Swami Pragyapad

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Sydney Possuelo: Yes, Adam, corporate social responsibility is possible. And, in a certain way it is incipient, but it already exists in some areas and it is present in some countries. But still in a very precarious way. We still need a very big evolution so that social responsibility can be full, and not compulsory, not born in those corporations as a form to reduce taxes or something like that. But may it be born from the comprehension that everyone of us is responsible not only individually, but also collectively, corporately. Then it’s necessary that we work in this sense of incentivating more and creating more space for this thing called incipient. Incipient is social responsibility. Yes, something like that.

by Sydney Possuelo

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Takashi Kiuchi: No, it is, it is possible. But it has certain limits because before corporate social responsibility, we have personal social responsibility. Personal social responsibility, PSR, is a base. And since our PSR is very questionable that is a reason why our corporate social responsibility is not effective, is not powerful enough. I think we put too much emphasis on the corporate side; but before corporations, before the corporate side, we have this individual personal social responsibility which plays a vital importance in any social responsibility we talk about. It is the individual and personal responsibility which starts all kinds of different social responsibilities.

by Takashi Kiuchi

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Tamas St. Auby: Yes, if it is not based on oniomania and pleonexia.

by Tamas St. Auby

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Tania Bruguera:

by Tania Bruguera

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Tavis Smiley: Is corporate social responsibility possible? It’s possible. It’s possible but not always probable. That said, there are any number of corporations that are in fact acting more and more responsibly on the corporate front. A number come to mind. But those companies that are responsible are responsible because they have a CEO, someone at the top, who infuses the organization with that kind of energy, with that kind of focus, with that kind of commitment. So it is possible that corporations can be responsible. Possible, not usually very probable. But it begins with individuals of conscience, individuals of conscience who infuse that kind of belief system into their various corporations. And when, like anything else, the person at the top, the individual takes responsibility for sharing that kind of expression, making that the goal, then it can in fact take root.

by Tavis Smiley

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Tegla Loroupe: Answertext will be available soon.

by Tegla Loroupe

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Thenmozhi Soundararajan: Corporations aren’t individuals. I think that regardless of how ethical and how socially responsible a corporation may say that it is, it’s still a privately-owned institution that’s accountable to virtually no one. And to say that corporations are responsible for their own accountability is a little bit like having the fox guarding the hen house. I think what we need to have is to return to many of the antitrust regulations that we had in place under the Roosevelt era where we really looked at curbing corporate control and corporate power, as opposed to giving corporations sovereignty more so than over the nation-state. Some of the things that I think we would want to look at with corporate accountability is transparency about the money that they make, transparency about worker relations and transparency about the conditions in their labor environments. And we actually have none of that. Any laws that we do have more and more we see nation-states, like in court cases they try and challenge and keep corporations accountable, airing on the side of the corporation. So, I’m very cynical about corporations being able to socially regulate themselves. I am, however, very much in favor for us taking back our power from corporations and really moving towards a model for corporate accountability that’s not about one individual taking on a corporation. But a collective and within governed laws having our states hold corporations accountable as opposed to taking their side over our rights as citizens and as consumers and people who make the money that help make the corporations make them rich, but we get very little of the benefits.

by Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Tu Weiming: Actually, the business school at Harvard used to train people to become competent in the maximization of profit of corporations. So in a way, the enhancement of profit making has become the unshakable ideology of business of corporations. Of course, a greater wealth has been generated and there’s the belief that a market economy is salvific is able to enhance wealth eventually for humanity as a whole and the world economic forum which has been criticized as an arena in which market fundamentalism is practiced or is at least advocated. Now it becomes seriously concerning for corporate responsibility. So-called corporate responsibility is predicated on the belief there is a fundamental reorientation of those people who are trained as the leaders of economic development. A leader as different from an expert or professional, who is able to enhance the profitability of a company, has to understand the role of economy especially, multinational corporation in the broader context of the society. Since multinational corporations are so powerful in shaping the society as a whole, it is absolutely serious for the corporations to develop a sense of responsibility, a sense of participation in the well being of the society as a whole. And this process is also an educational process for all business schools that train the new generation of corporate leaders. Now the assumption is an organization that is more powerful, more influential, has more access to information and ideas or to a feel more obligated for the well being of the society as a whole. And this connection, major corporations must assume social responsibility and it is ridiculous to believe that they can not do [audio ends]

by Tu Weiming

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Udi Aloni: Maybe we should call it solidarity; those very simple words, solidarity. You know when this war in Israel happened against Lebanon and Israel it got crazy and too over patriotic and fight against everyone that took to them Arab. It was really terrible. Suddenly those old Marxists came in the middle of Tel Aviv, some kids, and there was shouting, [more in another language]. And there was something so beautiful about suddenly for a whole small community calling for solidarity. It means an Arab-Jew solidarity. And I think this is the responsibility. Once we have solidarity, you have responsibility. So when all those proto-fascist energy came out and this nationalism. And for us, you have to understand the communist party, these words are something ridiculous and anachronistic about it. But those young Arab and Jewish kids in the middle of the war calling for solidarity, this is responsibility, once you have solidarity. So there are some good old terms that we should bring back to the front. So I think we all can sing, [more in another language]. Solidarity between Arab and Jews. [more in another language] I just said, "Solidarity between Arabs and Jews." It's part of responsibility. I just told him there is this experience of Berlin Alexanderplatz here, of the book. It's all those noises come around and I'm in the middle of Berlin there is a description of how the train going and see the ads and hear the people around. So I feel part of this book now. It's pretty cool, thanks.

by Udi Aloni

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Valentina Melnikova: In my opinion the definition „collective responsibility“ evokes negative associations, because it gets us to the time of Stalin’s terror; to the time fascistic concentration camps. Certainly corporate social responsibility appears now in many countries. Unfortunately could happen in Russia only in the future and corporate social responsibility is only possible if there would be really autonomic independent social organizations and solidly united civil society as well as contacts between people from different countries. And then these civil societies that are responsible of their members can take the responsibility for what happens in other countries and in their own country. The collective responsibility can only exist if the civil community has a possibility to change something with their own power, to improve the situation of many people or to protect them. My present example of such social responsibility is my organization the Committee of Soldier’s Mothers that for seventeen years has been taken responsibility for saving Russian youth that came to the cruel system of the Army. Our Committee takes responsibility for supporting soldiers' families. During the Chechenyan war our organization took responsibility to free and protect soldiers from Russian state as well as to free and protect those who were in the captivity in Chechenyan brigades.

by Valentina Melnikova

Sep 9, 2006 11:15:00 AM cite

Vesna Pesic: Answertext will be available soon.

by Vesna Pesic