William Greider

The social responsibility of business (aside from making money and paying the bills) is to create wealth for the future or, as Keynes put it, the material basis necessary to sustain a civilized society. The conflict with society arises over how we define “wealth”—valued narrowly in dollar returns as business and finance do or in the broader human terms that society applies. The great collision of our prosperous times involves the growing understanding that standard business practices (from environmental despoilation to the confinements imposed on people’s lives) destroy “wealth” for society in the process of generating greater returns for the firm itself. A new balance sheet is needed for American economic life, one that expresses a truer picture of losses and gains. It is unreasonable to expect corporate management to do this or even lead the way, but the “social responsibility” of business will be judged by whether, on the whole, companies continue to resist and evade these challenges-or cooperate with solutions.

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