Bad Company? Good Company?

I was reading in The Economist recently an article about the wave of “social responsibility” that is sweeping over companies today. In the face of declining continuous profitable quarters, companies and the CEOs that run them MUST look elsewhere for their measures of success.

No longer is the pernicious quest for higher and still higher profits the fuel inside corporate boardrooms.

Here’s a bit of mantra directly from that article:
Treat your employees well; encourage loyalty among your customers and suppliers; avoid investing in “unethical” industries, or in countries where workers are paid low wages or denied decent benefits; take care to save energy and recycle used envelopes; and so on.

It is with good reason that quarter-to-quarter growth is coming under scrutiny – IT IS NOT SUSTAINABLE.

Adam Smith claimed that the beauty of capitalism is that it forces everyone to compete for their daily bread… for the betterment of society at large -- yet in a world were governmental hand-outs to the rich and powerful, and racism (the tool of choice to defeat an opponent without having to actually face that opponent) have segregated – damn near permanently – the classes, you have to wonder what expense does The Corporation take for the continual raping and pillaging of the planet ALL FOR THE GLORY of that select few that can afford a high enough stock portfolio (and other ownership/wealth-creating devices) in said Corporation.

When Adam Smith was diligently writing with a quill pen by lamplight, I’m sure he never even dreamed that the Occidental Economies would be on the verge of exhausting the planets resources (if they continue to operate unchecked) and defecate on the planet with the never-ending stream of industrialization created waste; waste that cannot be recycled, reused or re-purposed.

Today's smart companies are looking into ways of re-vitalizing Mother Earth’s resources. But are they getting the lion’s share of the investment capital?

Corporate Social Responsibility must be the new MANTRA for the 21st Century, as the under 40 crowd is going to live until their late 90s at least (if they can afford the medical routines). Can you imagine a group of octogenarians robbing and stealing from the lofty elites in the Pacific Palisades, in Westchester County New York, in Boca Raton, in Evanston, IL? It’s poised to happen unless the NYSE most-favored chumps, errrr, companies look to “give back.” Shareholder value is overrated, wouldn’t you say? Mostly poignantly, when the fate of society is at stake.