Businessmen who talk about “social conscience”, environment, discrimination are just “unwitting puppets”.
Business is not an entity in itself whereas a person or a company that’s why we can’t talk about the responsibility of a business.
Social responsibilities are on the individual level not on the business level.
“[…]The businessman—self-selected or appointed directly or indirectly by stockholders—is to be simultaneously legislator, executive and jurist. He is to decide who to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds—all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to restrain inflation, improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and so on”.
“The executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal” but when this executives decides to spend some money on ethical concerns he becomes a public employee but normally these kinds of servants must be elected via a political process not stockholders will.
So market mechanisms should not determine the allocation of resources, political mechanisms should.
“In practice the doctrine of social responsibility is frequently a cloak for actions that are justified on other grounds rather than a reason for those actions”.
Discourses on Social responsibility might also be a “suicidal impulse” in the long term for corporations as it could strengthen the views that “pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral” and these arguments could be used as “the iron fist of government bureaucrats”.
Market mechanism is underlain by unanimity whereas political mechanism is underlain by conformity.
“Social responsibility” extends the scope of political mechanisms to all human activities which could lead to a “collectivist doctrine”. The only differences are lying in the fact that “collectivist ends could be attained without collectivist means”.
The only responsibility of business is to increase its profits as long as it respects the rules of the games which means “engages in free competition without deception or fraud”.
Below you can find some defintions of few words that were hard for me to translate, these are from Oxford American Dictionaries.
Vocabulary:
cloak |klōk| |kloʊk| |kləʊk|
noun
an outdoor overgarment, typically sleeveless, that hangs loosely from the shoulders.
• figurative something serving to hide or disguise something : lifting the cloak of secrecy on the arms trade.
verb [ trans. ]
dress in a cloak : she cloaked herself in black.
• figurative hide, cover, or disguise (something) : the horror of war was cloaked in the trappings of chivalry.
ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French cloke, dialect variant of cloche ‘bell, cloak’ (from its bell shape), from medieval Latin clocca ‘bell.’ Compare with clock 1 .
eleemosynary |ˌeləˈmäsəˌnerē; ˌelēə-| |ˈɛləˌmɑsn=əri| |ˈɛlɪiːˌmɒsɪnəri| |-ˌmɒz-|
adjective
of, relating to, or dependent on charity; charitable.
ORIGIN late 16th cent.(as a noun denoting a place where alms were distributed): from medieval Latin eleemosynarius, from late Latin eleemosyna ‘alms,’ from Greek eleēmosunē ‘compassion’ (see alms)
kudos |ˈk(y)oōˌdōs; -ˌdōz; -ˌdäs| |ˌkuˈdoʊs| |ˌkjuːdɒs|
noun
praise and honor received for an achievement.
ORIGIN late 18th cent.: Greek.
USAGE Kudos comes from Greek and means ‘glory.’ Despite appearances, it is not a plural form. This means that there is no singular form kudo and that use as a plural, as in the following sentence, is incorrect:: he received many kudos for his work (correct use is | he received much kudos for his work).
underlie |ˌəndərˈlī| |ˈəndərˌlaɪ| |ʌndəˌlʌɪ|
verb ( -lying; past -lay; past part. -lain) [ trans. ]
(esp. of a layer of rock or soil) lie or be situated under (something).
• be the cause or basis of (something) : the fundamental issue that underlies the conflict | [as adj. ] ( underlying) the underlying causes of poverty and drug addiction.
ORIGIN Old English underlicgan [be subject or subordinate to] (see under- , lie 1 ).
unwitting |ˌənˈwiti ng | |ˈənˌwɪdɪŋ| |ʌnˌwɪtɪŋ|
adjective
(of a person) not aware of the full facts : an unwitting accomplice.
• not done on purpose; unintentional : we are anxious to rectify the unwitting mistakes made in the past.
wildcat |ˈwīldˌkat|
adjective [ attrib. ]
(of a strike) sudden and unofficial : legislation to curb wildcat strikes.
• commercially unsound or risky.
