When is CSR justified?
Tatsiana Parkhimchyk outlines an argument against CSR which I think is mostly right: businesses are here to make an economic profit, not to contribute to social causes: ...the business of business is business. CSR includes: community health, safety, education...and so on an so forth. My question in this case is quite obvious: aren't all these spheres and activities the primarily concerns of the government? And shouldn't the government take care of their citizens to prevent crime, save the environment and satisfy the basic human needs and desires rather than business? In principle, yes. The incentives for companies are not to maximise social good - any more than are the incentives for individuals. This is why we appoint governments on our behalf - as a coordination mechanism, to solve the problem that competing individual incentives are sometimes destructive of social benefit. Simplistically put, government's job is to solve the tragedy of the commons and the prisoner'...