Of Lemmings, Appeasers, Piranhas, and Activists

Like lemmings marching toward a nearby cliff, many business leaders are blindly embracing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the doctrine du jour of activist nannies who are seeking to usurp political authority by setting themselves up as private regulators -- all for the purpose of dictating how the rest of us live our lives. . . .

In addition to the CSR lemmings, there are two other types of business leaders who preach the gospel of corporate socialism. They include those who believe CSR represents a public relations opportunity that companies can exploit for the sake of getting the activists off their backs. They are modern-day Neville Chamberlains; appeasement artists who believe that the Holy Grail of successful business management is good PR. . . .

The third group of business executives who support the CSR movement do so because they can afford to, and they believe their competition either cannot pay the price of admission to the CSR cult, or are unwilling to genuflect to the activists when they show up for tribute. . . . But their real motive is to exploit CSR to achieve an artificial advantage over the competition. They are not lemmings or appeasers. They are good old-fashioned piranhas. . . .

The net-net of this spectacularly undemocratic process called CSR is that the activists are being aided and abetted by some business executives in their efforts to dictate business policies and expenditures based on their vision of what is sustainable, equitable and fair for the rest of us. . . .

Fortunately, there are still some corporate warriors who understand that businesses do not have social responsibilities; only people do.

-- Nick Nichols, townhall.com, 10/4/2007