When it comes to me and corporate responsibility I adopt the George Orwell position towards the British left; standing on the home terrace holding a season ticket but spending most of my time shouting abuse at my own team. I believe in the possibility of good business and its potential value, but often the practice of corporate responsibility leaves me frustrated and angry.
Partly this is CSR sector’s bland, complacent rhetoric, more substantively it’s about how businesses claiming to be virtuous insist on keeping certain issues off limits. Two of these sinful issues are executive rewards and company governance.
Both are at the forefront of the row over BHS, in which Sir Philip Green enriched himself and his family while loading BHS with debt and failing to put money aside to cover its pension liabilities. Now, as well as the 11,000 workers facing redundancy, the taxpayer and other pensioners will have to pick up various parts of the bill. To add salt to the wounds Sir Philip (a man with friends in very high places in the British establishment) went to considerable lengths to limit his family’s own tax liabilities to this country.
This takes me to another problem with the CSR discourse. Whilst company bosses like to make self-serving distinction between the bad practice they have ended or avoided and the great things they do now, there is an unwritten rule that business leaders don’t publicly attack each other. Perhaps this is because they each know too much about what really happens behind the rhetoric.
So, despite the BHS story apparently exemplifying all that is wrong with shareholder capitalism and corporate greed I suspect we will hear little or nothing on the issue from business leaders or their organisations.
Yet it is not just Labour, the trade unions and the critics of capitalism that are outraged by what is unfolding; some of the most critical comments about BHS’s former bosses came yesterday in the House of Commons from Conservative MPs.
Big business faces a legitimacy crisis. It is not just that we have a thriving activist left in Britain - including at the helm of the Labour Party – not afraid to attack the unacceptable faces of capitalism. There is also an emergent right of centre populism (which may well take a dynamic new institutional form after the EU referendum) happy to join the attack if it helps attract supporters to nationalism and social conservativism.
It is therefore not only ethical but strongly advisable for the business community to demonstrate a capacity for self-criticism and self-regulation. Either collectively through its various associations like the CBI and IoD, or individually through prominent business leaders speaking out, the business community needs now to show the clarity and courage and to recognise and condemn the deep systemic failings revealed by the BHS saga.
If they keep quiet, for fear perhaps of some awkward encounters in the first class lounges of international airports, they have no one but themselves to blame if the reputation of big business as a whole is tarnished by this sorry tale.
Related articles
-
The public are ready to go further and faster on net zero
Anthony Painter
The public are ahead of policy-makers and, indeed, most of the business world. COP26 is an enormous opportunity to catch up. Global leaders should take it.
-
Can progressives ever stop the in-fighting?
Matthew Taylor
Biden's victory has caused the left and moderates to fracture again.
-
Can President Biden bring America together again?
Anthony Painter
There is a long road ahead for the new president.
Join the discussion
Comments
Please login to post a comment or reply
Don't have an account? Click here to register.
Thanks Adrian and Jenny - great comments. I've been following up by asking why the CBI (the voice of business) hasn't yet commented
(Reposted as plain text)
I live in hope that this ethical awakening will occur in theboardrooms, Michelin-starred Docklands eateries, nineteenth holes and variouswood-panelled enclaves around the country but I’m struggling to detect anysigns to convince me that my hope is anything other than naive and wishfulthinking in the face of an entrenched, complacent and, apparently, bulletproofelite.
I have a suspicion that far from the events of the last 10years serving as a wake-up call to all involved around the inherent dangers ofunregulated, technically-accelerated and self-serving capitalism, the absenceof large numbers of our banking elite currently residing at Her Majesty’spleasure has only served to embolden those with the inclination and ability tomanipulate markets, organisations and policies to their own ends.
It’s the old truth - free markets and the tenets ofcapitalism work fine as long as homo sapiens isn’t involved.
I agree that fear is at the heart of silence. Fear of being found out. Fear of being exposed. Fear of the shareholder backlash. I was asked in a recent online summit I ran why so many companies who are trying to operate more democratically, and integrate social and environmental policies don't speak out about their positive experiences as much as they might. Fear of media plays a role here. The fear which comes for genuine organisations that aren't yet perfect but are making progress and still have plenty to do, that they are easy targets for criticism rather than plaudits. At a conference last year the VP Sustainability of Unilever - a company that is leading a lot of progress - gave a good speech. The one question from the audience was about the continuing sale of skin whitening products in Africa. Nor is silence solely owned by big business; few charities spoke out after the failure of Kids Company. Unfortunately into the gap of silence leaps negative assumption, and we assume all are complicit. That may well be the case, but perhaps we also need to create more forums where those that are making efforts can share their progress.
er.... Interesting formatting!.
Note to self - don't cut and paste from Microsoft Word!
:-)
I live in hope that this ethical awakening willoccur in the boardrooms, Michelin-starred Docklands eateries, nineteenth holes andvarious wood-panelled enclaves around the country but I’m struggling to detect anysigns to convince me that my hope is anything other than naive and wishfulthinking in the face of an entrenched, complacent and, apparently, bulletproofelite.
I have a suspicion that far from the events ofthe last 10 years serving as a wake-up call to all involved around the inherentdangers of unregulated, technically-accelerated and self-serving capitalism, theabsence of large numbers of our banking elite currently residing at Her Majesty’spleasure has only served to embolden those with the inclination and ability tomanipulate markets, organisations and policies to their own ends.
It’s the old truth - free markets and thetenets of capitalism work fine as long as homo sapiens isn’t involved.