Opinion: Corporate Philanthropy May Be Harming Business

Corporate “social responsibility” may be undermining the ability of businesses to stay focused on their main goal of making profits and may be behind the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP, says an opinion article in The Washington Post.

Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large for Thomson Reuters, argues that corporate philanthropy programs mistakenly link business interests to those of the public, when a business’s chief priority is to generate profits for shareholders.

Ms. Freeland writes, “Corporate social responsibility sounds as unobjectionable as motherhood and apple pie — and it would indeed be crazy to object to rich companies writing big checks for good causes. But we shouldn’t let that distract us from the fact that the chief social responsibility of business is to make a buck — and the social responsibility of government is to be sure that perfectly proper corporate greed is channeled and constrained for the greater good of us all.”

Read The Chronicle‘s recent article on efforts by Gulf Coast charities to seek restitution from BP.

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