In today’s Pope Center piece, Jay Schalin writes about a recent lecture given by a UNC communications professor on the subject of “corporate social responsibility.” When questioned, the professor said that profits were anti-social. Business executives should not try to maximize them, but instead use the firm’s resources for “the public good.”
There is nothing wrong in people using their own money (whether from labor, from investments, or any other source) for charitable purposes, but it’s vicarious generosity for business managers to divert resources that should go either for dividends or business improvements into purposes they think are for “the public good.”
