In a consumer society like ours, we vote with our dollars, and in this day and age, it’s our responsibility to keep tabs on the business ethos and behavior of the companies we purchase from so we can make more informed choices. In the end what a company does is dictated by the people they answer solely to, the customer. This site helps us keep tabs on companies and inform others about their practices, allowing us to punish harmful and negligent companies, and helping progressive responsible businesses. By creating a community ratings system like this you can get a rough idea of what the consensus on any given matter is, and the community can define the values they use to judge a company.

My 2¢

My money represents my life. It took my education, my energy, my experience(s) to earn that money – so what I do with it is a very clear indication of what is important to me – or at least it should be. There is no way that we can research to the nth degree every single company where we spend our money/lives – but when we have obvious and clear evidence that a company is not behaving responsibly – or not behaving in a way that we feel is consistent with our own personal values – we have the right and maybe even the obligation to “vote with our dollars” and let the company know that we do not approve.

There are places where I will not shop and brands of cars that I will not buy (no need to rant on them here at this point) because I feel that they have been blatant in their disregard for some of my personal values—as long as this forum is not usurped by “hired corporate invaders” who come here solely for the purpose of bashing the competition – I think this could be a valid way for us to speak up.

I can’t help but feel like this is a vehicle for the consumer public to bitch, thereby expending their frustration, with the result being no further action. “Free Speech” is great way to get the public involved in time consuming debate while more active forces continue their selfish activities. No, I don’t have a better solution – just the observation of what plays out in reality, rather than the desired outcome of our forefather’s intentions.

Everyone wants a $40 dvd player but no one wants the social baggage that comes with it. You’ll buy the dvd player anyways though, right? It’s too convenient, too easy… Every dollar IS a vote, but no one really wants to talk about what they really voted for. Listening to your Ipod right now? Good for you, you just voted for 15 hour days at a wage of 7.5 cents an hour, mercury spills, no health insurance and no future. Go you!

But you bought that ipod anyways, didnt you? Sure, because everyone else did and its a pretty cool device, isnt it? I know I want one, I just dont have one. Not because of the reasons listed above, but because I just dont need one.

Why foster a set of beliefs that turn consumers into hypocrites? Why not instead try to find a solution that doesnt involve ‘calling out’ companies for what you see as unfair or anti-social behaviour? Instead create a better product that people will want to buy instead, maybe because your product isnt made in slave labor camps, or doesnt hurt the environment, or maybe just because you can make your product cheaper, or cooler… The list goes on and on… The only way to change things is to act. Whining about corporate practices is just that, whining… The only thing that changes anything is the free market. Just try to prove me wrong on that one. If you can take the customers away from evil company X, then you can change the way they do business…

Whining about it without action is just an exercise in economic masturbation.

These days, a lot can be done from your armchair, and unless you’re gonna try a one man stunt, spreading and gaining awareness is an intricate part of taking action. If a corporation is acting in such a way that I feel my health or happiness are at risk, I will do something. The USA constitution recommends it! Should a public corporation be spending any of its time ‘giving back’, since in theory that would involve sacrificing some of its profits and therefore robbing its shareholders? It’s the shareholder responsibility to make sure that the company acts within their interests. And if they do that despite the people’s protests, then its their responsibility when they go out of business. Last time I checked they paid for schools, hospitals and pensions, and employed people. Even if the corporations weren’t their, the money still would be. Pensions and employing people are part of a give and take relationship, and although beneficial, shouldn’t be seen as a company’s “good will”. Also, doing something that is “good” can’t fix damage that you’ve done elsewhere (if you’ve done any). It should be in the corporate interest to cater in every way to the community. If the site does eventually gain any traction, it will only encourage corporations to engage in CSR that purports to benefit the wider community but cannot ignore the bottom line. If that happens, then won’t it be addressed on this very website?

What’s wrong with spreading information. The opinion is second to the facts, and this website will help spread the facts. Not everybody can create companies to compete with the ones they don’t like, and even if they did, this information would still be important.

It’s funny, hearing the same meme year after year, always with the intention of limiting public discourse and inhibiting free speech. Actors and public figures should shut up about politics and entertain us. Citizens should keep their opinions to themselves unless they’re willing to engage in immediate Don Quixote-style action. Politicians who do not support the President are traitors and seditionists. Sharing ideas and critiquing the status quo is ‘whining’ and using the internet to spur social change is ‘economic masturbation’. Over and over, the same voices, the same message: don’t speak up. Don’t share your thoughts and ideas. Don’t try and effect change, because it’s hopeless.

Thanks again for chiming in. I’m sure the corporations that pollute, the corrupt politicians, the wealthy and entitled, they all fully support your actions. Certainly there must be some sense of fulfillment in that?

it is a corporation’s responsibility to try turn a profit within the laws/regulations of the nation it is operating in – not to be provider of social-welfare and community aid/any other thing. Charity is not an obligation – it is an admirable trait we can only hope more have, but it is not a requirement of business.

You want the firm you buy your groceries from to fund development in the nation of it’s food suppliers? What’s stopping you from sending your money over yourself? Cut out the middle man send the aid outta your wallet now – of course that notion doesn’t work because people want the firms they hate so much to fund the charities they love so much.

I don’t see many mom&pop stores donating 100s of millions of dollars a year to charity/CSR. I don’t see people complaining about the little shop down the street that charges you twice-as-much for your bread all of which is kept in their pockets not distributed to a wide net of shareholders/invested in charitable donations/spent on R&D. I don’t see the site filled to the brim with questions about the ethical practices of small-time retailers – just the big guys unfortunately.

Why not? Sure the impact of little firm X is much smaller than big firm Y but when was that ever a worthy excuse?

We all want our firms to be more ethical, to treat their customers AND their employees better…but ‘better’ and ‘ethical’ are politics – one persons idea of better might not match mine, and i’m entirely sure that many people’s idea of ‘ethical’ will not match mine.

Consumers are king. We make or break firms with our everyday choices but that doesn’t make us all-powerful. Vote with your money and take it elsewhere, there’s no better signal to business than reduced revenue.

This site can help, but unless it places a bigger focus on the positive-aspects of business it will become little more than a place for corporation-hating people to vent their frustrations.

If you don’t like what the site is doing, you are always free to pick up sticks and go.

I like the idea of being able to talk about what is going on in the news with others. I don’t want this to become a slashdot (unwashed masses, trolls, in soviet russia memes). I do like the idea of companies googling their own names, and this site coming up fairly high on the pile. Clicking in, they find that I’m angry; and they can find out why. They can even respond. Hell, they can maybe even fix it.

But, as I noted before… if that’s not your thing, you don’t have to comment.

Especially in America, a country of volunteers, the role of corporations as social institutions has long been recognized. While this is not systematic across all countries and cultures, this understanding is a vital component of how things work in the USA. In sum “social institutions and material goods [are regarded] as ethically valuable because they are the means to an ethical goal.” (Drucker, 1946, p.132)

I think judging “profit” solely by examining a corporation’s short-term revenue is misguided… If a corporation values short-term profits over long-term profits then, of course, they will not be vehicles for social change since, in the short-term, they’ve made their money.

Instead, split the faceless “corporation” into two entites: the legal corporate entity and the executives running this legal entity. The corporation, as legal entity, is long-lived while the executive teams are, usually, short-lived. So if the executives steer the corporation to maximize short-term gain at the expense of ANYTHING ELSE (e.g. Enron) then, yes, no social change there. If the executives instead maximize long-term gain then it is in the interest of the corporate legal entity and all its adherents (shareholders) to maximize beneficial social impact. Basic “don’t shit where you eat” priniciple. ( =

Its impossible to even identify the names of most of the corporate entities that benefit from my spending each day. Sure, I can (and do) refuse to spend money when I know the corporation is causing great harm, but most of the time I’ll never know.

My biggest expense goes towards funding the most evil, anti-human corporate machine on Earth. Compulsory taxes go straight to the US industrial military complex. Next to that, spending $100 on a pair of sweatshop produced sneakers seems downright philanthropic. What to do about that?

Do you know what ‘fair trade’ means?

- yes I do it is the concept that it is somehow unfair to set up barriers such as tariffs and regulations on international trade. Unfortunatly ‘fair trade’ more often than not is is only fair to the large corporate interest that promote it.

Is it democratic that corporations should take it upon themselves to address the world’s problems?..(edit).. Isn’t it precisely because they haven’t that we have politics and governments?

- Yes it is, if the people of a democratic nation through the democratic process establish laws that apply to all citizens in order to promote the public good. The corporations clamored for the rights to be treated as ‘persons’ under the law and should therefor be obligated to follow those same laws.

Why single out the most visible corporations, the ones that make the news, when there are others that may be more offensive to your values and harmful to the world?

- Because the more successful you are in business the more lives you affect through your practices.

Are ‘sweatshops’ as bad as they sound?

- Answer that yourself, would you want to work in one? or maybe your children?

Is development really as simple as enforcing first-world labor standards across the globe?

- No it isn’t, but just allowing exploitation to continue doesn’t help either and actually helps reduce our standing internationally.

Is the green lobby bullet-proof?

- No it isn’t as evidenced by their resistance to nuclear power and sometimes unrealistic time table for how they intend for us to retool or energy infrastructure, still I would rather see myself in ther camp than the alternative.

Should a public corporation be spending any of its time ‘giving back’, since in theory that would involve sacrificing some of its profits and therefore robbing its shareholders?

- That point only makes sense if you consider the sole purpose of a corporation is to make money for it’s shareholders.

Do corporations need to ‘give back’ in the first place? What exactly do they take? Last time I checked they paid for schools, hospitals and pensions, and employed people.

- They should, they have the privledge of operating in one of the most advanced nations in the world with the potential to make profits that would be sharply curtailed in many other nations. So yeah they should ‘give back’ for being allowed that honor.

What does Do The Right Thing hope to achieve?

- In the ‘old days’ people did most of their business locally, if Larry the blacksmith was a drunk who liked to beat his apprentices the people of a village might choose not to do business with him, perhaps even run him out of town (I’m not promoting mob justice here, just making a point). These days though the global economy makes it difficult if not impossible for the averate citizen to find out how an employer treats his workers and conducts his business. And while many people don’t care what goes on inside the factory just so long as chep goods come out, I am not one of them.

If the site does eventually gain any traction, it will only encourage corporations to engage in CSR that purports to benefit the wider community but cannot ignore the bottom line. Do we really want companies engaging in phony campaigns that cloud our sense of what constitutes doing the right thing?

- They do it already, hopefully sites like these will help level the field.

Want to know more about the companies you buy from and find alternatives to them go to www.knowmore.org I don’t work for them, I just respect what they do.

Thanks for the long answer. Because it would get confusing, I won’t repeat our paragraphs above, but will answer all elements of your response to my original post in order.

On fair trade: We seem to agree on this one. It’s a response to unfair subsidies in the form of a.. er… subsidy, ie an attempt to pay producers more than the market price for their produce, because the competition they face is unfair. I think all subsidies are counter-productive: they prop up entire industries that should have declined a long time ago, and distort the market. I’m against subsidies of any kind for American, European or indeed Ethiopian farmers. They raise prices for consumers and hamper development in rich and poor nations alike.

On corporations ‘doing good’: I think your response is confused, or at least confusing, so I can’t really respond to it. When did corporations ‘clamor’ to be treated as ‘citizens’? My point is, I think, simple:

Nobody wants companies to behave irresponsibly or anti-socially. Yet CSR is not the force for good it is made out to be. What could possibly be wrong with spreading ‘good practices’ based on ‘universal principles’?

Well, it’s undemocratic. Who decides what the good practices are? Who decides what the universal principles are? I imagine that if you were to ask people what the world’s problems are, you would get a variety of opinions. If you asked them what we should do about those problems, you would get an even wider variety of opinions. If you then asked people about the means that we should use to achieve those aims, you would get an even greater diversity. If everyone agreed on the solution to the world’s problems, there would be no need for politics. We could just appoint administrators and let them get on with the job. But in fact, people disagree on just about everything. That is why we have elections, governments and political debate. It is a messy, rough-and-ready way of deciding society’s priorities, but it is less bad than all the alternatives. Not least CSR, or indeed this website, which seems to say “the average opinion of the users of this site should go on to push companies into behaving a certain way”. I say no to that – we elect people whom we judge as having a better idea about how to solve problems than we do. The irony is that many visitors will have an anti-corporate stance, yet who do they look to to redress the injustice? The companies themselves!

The principle behind CSR is that there is an agreed set of things that are wrong with the world, that there is an agreed set way in which we should improve them, and that is through companies. I believe that this would only be true if governments were incapable of delivering those objectives, and if there was full agreement on what those objectives are. Neither of those conditions hold true.

On the problem of only picking on those companies that make the news: (this is crucial to my objection to this site, which doesn’t ask that contributors bring anything new to the table, but merely asks that they paste in existing articles or bits of news, creating a mob mentality that surfs on recycled conclusions rather than exposing anything new or significant)

You say that’s ok, because ‘the more successful you are in business the more lives you affect through your practices’. Sure, but success and an ability to stay above or below the radar of consumers and news are two different things. Some filthy companies out there get away with murder, are very successful, but stay out of the news. But the people on this site aren’t undercover journalists seeking to uncover them, they’re armchair news aggregators.

As Naomi Klein admits, campaigns and initiatives such as this site typically concentrate on populist issues and target their fire at a handful of prominent companies. “The companies being targeted – Disney, Mattel, The Gap and so on – may not always be the worst offenders, but they do tend to be the ones who flash their logos in bright lights on the global marquee,” she says. She recognises that the anti-globalisers are not trying to do this in the best way possible, that they are not even going after the people who are worst. Rather, they are just going after the people who are most visible. This cannot be a good way of improving the world.

Imagine, for example, a campaign that says that McDonald’s ought to do more to recycle its hamburger packaging. Is that the best way to go about it? Or is the best way to go about it to have a recycling law, which is debated by a congress, on which all people can have their say and which is applied uniformly and transparently to all companies?

Are ‘sweatshops’ as bad as they sound?:

‘Answer that yourself, would you want to work in one? or maybe your children?’ you say. Ok, I will.

Let’s brush aside the crude and obvious first. So-called sweatshops do not constitute ‘slave labor’ or ‘exploitation’ as I’ve seen it be mentioned elsewhere on this site. Workers or paid (however little), and they choose to work there, so it can’t be slave labour. No-one forces people to work in sneaker factories. The reason they do is to earn a wage higher than can be earned elsewhere – toiling in the fields in the searing heat, for example. If they could earn more elsewhere, they would.

Now you’re probably thinking, ‘why don’t these wildly profitable multinationals that outsource their work to these garment factories pay better?’. Well, they could, but that would be commercially unsound. More importantly for anyone concerned with bettering lives in the developing world, it would distort the labor market and would harm the communities in which these factories reside. Imagine for example that making sneakers made you as much as you’d earn training as a doctor say. That wouldn’t be great for that society. Development isn’t that simple.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not appauding poverty here, but it is wrong to think that you can compare working conditions in the US with those in Cambodia, say. Sweatshops are a transient but necessary part of development (things weren’t too good in factories in the US or UK 150 years ago, either), and a symptom rather than a cause of poverty.

Also, it’s important to note that conditions in the factories that produce western goods are by and large better than domestically oriented ones. When I was in Vietnam in 2001, I was lucky enough to visit a Nike factory. It was a hell of a lot better than the local alternative producing sneakers that wouldn’t have been sellable abroad.

So to answer your question – yes, if i lived in Bangladesh and my kids had the chance to earn more in a sneaker factory than working for me in the fields, sure I’d want them to work there.

And to tie this in with why I think this site is so awful: If, for example, you are campaigning against Nike and you say, “It’s terrible. Conditions in the Nike factory are so awful, we think either the Nike factory should shut down, or we shouldn’t buy goods from this Nike factory”. The consequences of the ‘success’ of this campaign are terrible for those people who have chosen to work in a Nike factory. They were far better off working in the Nike factory than working in the fields or in still less savoury occupations, but have ended up far worse off as a consequence of the actions of the people on and behind this site. God help us if companies ever started taking this site seriously.

Is the green lobby bullet-proof?

The environmental issue is too big to get into here, but I’m glad you recognize some inconsistencies in what passes for environmentally-friendly these days. I live with a guy who unplugs everything at night, as if we’ll save the world through pathetic personal sacrifices rather than massive investment in alternatives. You don’t change the world by cutting back, you change it by addressing the root of the problem.

The next few points we duelled over are largely covered in the above.

although i agree that corporations are not the government, the fact is that the government doesn’t really have much control over corporations. if, and only if, the government gets a backbone and stops letting corporations control it like a puppet AND corporations voluntarily make changes themselves (it has to work on both ends) will our situation start to improve. of course DTRT is not the only solution, but it certainly is a small step in the right direction in more ways than one. small steps lead to bigger, better things.

“The misguided perception that corporations “rather than governments have a duty to address the world’s problems?

INDIVIDUALS have duties to address the problems that affect them and those they care about. If each of us took action on our own, or put our money where money where our mouth is, rewarding those that take actions we approve of, we’d be much better off than assigning governments to address the world’s problems. Asking the government to solve your problem is like saying “I won’t put my money where my mouth is, but I’ll point a gun at you so you have no choice but to put YOUR money where my mouth is.”

“Governments apply laws fairly and universally”?

Is that principle the same one that gave us Apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow laws in the southern United States? Is that the same principle that sentences users of crack cocaine (read “poor people with brown skin”) in prison more often and for longer than users of powder cocaine (read “rich people with white skin”)? Is that the same principle that has residents of a small community in Georgia (the US state) declaring their parks fit for football and baseball (read “good American sports”) but not for soccer (read “sport played by foreigners”)?

I applaud good governance when I see it, be it corporate or state, but don’t pretend that it’s inherent with one and not the other.

the ‘green movement’ is gaining recognition with or without grassroots supervision. the goal of a site like this is to cut through false claims to positive impact by allowing the masses to get wide-angled perspective on every public move by companies.

big companies have big impact, so naturally my concern will be with them. the best thing that could happen is that corporations would see that people see their actions and care. nobody wants corporations to go out of business trying to be responsible – we want to see them thrive on it (otherwise they’ll never change!).

clicking the mouse could be the way to communicate with the market without resorting to government intervention. so click away friends – lets see what this forum can produce.

(and personally, I don’t have the time or interest to read your thousand word thesis on the essence of responsibility – keep it short and I’ll read it carefully)

Sorry, you’re right, my post was too long – but it was a response to an equally long piece, and it’s hard to ‘bulletize’ when my point is precisely that these issues need clarification, not aggregation.

Anyway, ham666 bone, you say: “the goal of a site like this is to cut through false claims to positive impact by allowing the masses to get wide-angled perspective on every public move by companies.”

But it doesn’t cut through anything! it regurgitates press releases and existing snippets from all over the web, and then takes an average read on this third-hand ‘news’. It numbs issues, it doesn’t contribute anything to the debate!

Web 2.0 applied to political or social issues isn’t ‘wide-angled’ – it leads to demagoguery: mobs of people peddling narrow, populist claims that corporations are only too happy to pick up on and throw back at them in the form of CSR because it’s good business, regardless of the actual validity, sincerity or actual impact of the move.

I think this story has value in that it highlights the fact that the world is a complicated place and it’s not always obvious what doing the right thing means. The public opinion doesn’t necessarily express informed opinions on complex issues.

I think the cause of this site is great though and it can be very valuable, not least as a discussion and information platform. Personally, from what I’ve read, I don’t think protectionism is doing the right thing, nor do I think it’s typically wrong for corporations to use cheap labor in third world countries. The reason is that the alternatives are worse, but that’s just hard for many of us to imagine. For a perspective on this, see In Praise of Cheap Labor by Paul Krugman.

The simple fact is that both corporations and governments, being agents of the people, have a responsibility. Investors do, too.

I don’t think I can add much more to Pedrito4909’s “response to response” post except to say well done. It is a very well argued and no, it was not too long.

For those who haven’t quite grasped the importance of free markets (not subsidized markets) and the importance of global trade in helping the poorest of nations get a leg up on the development ladder, I suggest you read Globilization and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz and The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs. Once you have, you’ll realize that it is far too simplistic to blame the current state of the world’s poorest nations and the inequality of wealth distribution on a few global enterprises. One must also consider a developing nation’s political history, geography, proximity to ocean trade routes, prevalence of disease – particularly malaria and AIDS, existence of property rights, previous financial impositions by the World Bank and IMF, debt to superpowers incurred during the cold war, and a host of other factors. Is it really rational to believe that Malawi is so poor because Coke and MacDonalds are so big?

By the way, one does not vote with one’s dollars, one votes by dropping a ballot in the ballot box. If we voted with dollars, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and the other top 500 most wealthy people on the planet would likely have more votes than the rest of us combined (ie. a majority government). If you really want to make your dollar count, ask your government to increase the use of YOUR tax dollars on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA); at least to increase it to 0.7% of gross national product – an amount countries have already committed to at the UN, but which precious few have yet to achieve. The US, for example, uses only about 0.15% of its GNP (that’s 1.5 cents for every $10 of income) for ODA, a pathetic amount, particularly when compared to the amount it spends on the war in Iraq.

Everyone,

I value each contribution to this discussion because at least there is a dialog and an intelligent exchange of views (so far) and each has value. Both sides or I should say most sides of these contributions make very interesting and valid points. Corporations, government and the value of this website are all a part of the issue. The question is how can this all be tied together and solutions revealed and implemented? I would never claim to have an answer on my own but I value each opinion and would enjoy seeing discussion on how to begin to narrow it all down to the core issues on each side and begin to identify not only what kinds of things can or should be done, but identify how to implement an agreed upon courses of action that can be taken and by whom. There is potential here. Can this website help to provide answers or will it just be more of the same ol’ bitching and moaning with endless debate without accomplishing anything?

Free Markets are important. However any market economist will tell you that free market systems have no inherent conscience—in fact, to have one may seriously hinder it’s ability to successfully compete in a system that is devoid of such considerations.

What you may not be aware of…

What is interesting is that in the US, at least, corporations have been granted the status of an individual: take a look at corporate law, and you will see that, as far as the legal system is concerned, the corporation is an individual (initially enacted for taxation purposes, but then extended through a series of tort laws to go far beyond just taxation).

The Implications of Corporations being treated as Individuals

So, I would argue that if you are treated as an individual by the law of the land, you are therefore necessarily an active member of said society. And if you are a member of a society, there’s no getting around this: you have responsibilities and duties to that society. Free markets don’t live in a vacuum…they live within the living, breathing, organisms that consist and are shaped by numerous individuals…that cohesive whole? It’s called a society. Now, stay with me here: if you’re part of a society, and that society is governed by, oh, say a government, and that government exists for the sole reason for encouraging members of society to coexist and even enhance the lives of each other (debatable, but I think a point that most would agree upon further reflection), then:

1. It is most definitively the case that corporations must fall within the context of “good practices” and “social conscience” since it, by definition, lives within that society, is governed by its laws, and is even considered an individual member of that society;

2. Failing to follow the notions outlined in #1, you summarily place corporations external to society, yet benefiting from society in a parasitical manner…not exactly a society I’d like to live in considering the consequences—or lack thereof for said corporations.

3. Given 1 and 2, the justification for this site is obvious…as it represents a necessarily dialog to hold corporations accountable for their actions within a stated societal group. In fact, it amounts to no more than one individual talking about another—and rendering opinions on that individual’s action. Tell me you don’t do that on a daily basis – if you do, you’ve not thought about it closely for each and every one of us render judgments on each other continuously.

So, Pedrito4909 and cnidog, I suspect that you’ve missed the main point of this site. Think about it some more, and hopefully some of my words here might at least present an alternative to your thoughts…

Without your question we wouldn’t have all these excellent rebuttals, several of which absolutely reinforced my beliefs of the value and need for a forum such as this.

Well said. So if I understood you correctly, in your opinion does part of your statement boil down to corporations being considered the same as tax paying human citizens and should be held accountable in the same manner as a human citizen? If so, would this not mean that there should be new laws that take this into consideration because I am under the impression that this so called “corporate citizen” is held to a different standard than the “Human citizen.” With that in mind, would this view not become more complicated due to the international status of the corporation as opposed to the human who is restricted to and identified with a specific country of residence?

I have to make a statement about sweatshops as they’ve been mentioned here a couple times, including by the original poster. First off, calling them a “transient but necessary phenomenon” is pretty sickening. Hard work is one thing – this is blatant exploitation by multinational companies. All it takes is for that Nike(or whatever) factory to pull out of one region to leave it decimated and back in exactly the same straits as it was before. They’re not about “economic development” in other nations, they’re about “make our crap cheaply while ignoring decent workplace wages, safety, health, and environmental regulations”.

The viewpoint of “sweatshops are OK” encourages recognizing third world peoples not as people at all, but as commodities to be bought and traded! These are human beings, and they have a right to fair wages, decent working hours and a safe workplace environment as much as any American worker does. Have the lessons of children in coal mines, Manchester’s peppered moths, textile lung, Upton Sinclair’s Jungle, fifteen hour workdays, and Pinkerton massacres already been forgotten? Do you really want to write off inflicting these horrors on other people as “inevitable”, while with the other hand reaping the economic reward of it? That above all else isn’t right.

Using the example of “well the other local factories are worse” isn’t much of an argument, either. We should be striving to provide something truly better, not just “not quite as bad”; otherwise, it’s just taking advantage of crappy governments and bad economics. Even in the “best” of sweatshops, folks aren’t exactly rushing out to buy TV’s, cars, and other consumer goods with their wages. Instead, they’re still just scraping to get by. Maybe not quite scraping as hard as with subsistence labor, but still scraping..

First off, let me say thank you to everyone so far for the high caliber of the comments and the respectfulness of the discourse. It’s an important point that often gets lost in electronic forums due to the anonymity of it all.

That said, and with the considerable divergence of opinions found here, I’ll grant you that this forum could work out well. I think that some of the initial misgivings expressed by others were that this site would simply become a multinational-corporation slamfest.

I go back to one of Pedrito4909’s original statements where he noted the need to post on this site with trepidation as doing the “right” thing isn’t that simple. When Banana Republic has its clothes made in Sri Lanka some people see that as BR running sweatshops, while others see an investment in infrastructure and local capacity and a transfer of technology that Sri Lankan’s can use to advance their own development. So what’s the right thing?

The truth is that the “right” thing is such a value laden term that we need open discussions like these to better understand each others opinions and values – as long as they don’t succumb to group-think.

WRT corporations being treated as individuals under US law, that’s an interesting development that I was not aware of, so thanks for informing me. However, with respect to that meaning that corporations must fall within the context of “good practices” or “social conscience” because they are now part of society, I am not sure what that means – I don’t even know what it would mean when applied to a person. For example, right now in my city there is a vocal debate about whether Muslim women should be allowed to have their faces covered with a hijab in public. “It’s not normal in our western society”, some have argued. “It’s imperative for open communication that the face is revealed”, they say. Is wearing a hijab in public “good practice” in western society. Clearly, some feel no! To me that sounds like discrimination based on religion. On another story posted on this site, Walmart is accused of using a loophole to avoid paying taxes. Is Walmart practicing “good practices”? To some, this is money taken away from local governments to use for schools, to others it’s simple tax avoidance so that Walmart can reinvest its savings elsewhere in the company – possibly enhancing productivity and future taxes.

The point is that rating a company for doing the right thing is complicated and value laden, but as long as the dialogue continues, we’ll all be better off.

My room-mate and I have debates and discussions about politics. One of the most violent is that he hates our tax system, and that it supports a welfare system that he feels is unfair.

His argument is that it is not fair for the government to hold a proverbial “gun” to its citizens’ heads, and “force” them to support causes that they would otherwise not support – welfare, for intance. My roommate insists that if the government would stop raiding us, its citizens’, and corporations, would, of their own volition, take ove these problems.

Thank you for making my point for me, that “Corporate America” does not feel the need to be socially responsible; that’s why we – what was you said – “that what government is for”. And yet we hear over and over again, how angry we are that the government keeps involving themselves in our lives.

Hey!!! Got a news flash for you! If you want the government to stay out of your moral/ethical/social decisions, then start taking some fucking responsibility for making some of those decisions for your damn self!!!

You can’t say that corporations have no responsibilities to the comunities in which they operate – that that’s the responsibility of our government – and then complain because you don’t like the government getting involved in areas of your life that you don’t want them in.

...then again, I could be completely full of shit, and have no idea what I’m talking about….

I think it is well known that Corporations only care about their bottom line. Someone mentioned that a corporations board and the investors should be held accountable and additionally others suggest that governments do something about it. I think government should overhaul laws pertaining to corporations. We can talk all day about change being necessary but what changes? The question I think should be asked would be what kinds of changes to the laws would successfully address the issue? I am no expert so I wonder where can one begin to pinpoint what needs to be changed and how to change it? Before a politician can make a change in the halls of government a lawyer would need to do some homework. Any lawyers in the house?

The documentary “The Corporation” compares the modern corporation to the APA’s definition of a Psychopath Corporations won’t take over these things because they, as an entity (as defined under federal law, they are a “person”), don’t care.

Unless it benefits them, they typically won’t do it, hence the idea of vote with your pocketbook. Which in turns leads to massive email chains of “don’t buy gas on this day!” etc. (completely futile).

At the end of the day, you’re right pedrito4809. People need to 1. educate themselves, 2. become involved in the political process and 3. make the changes in their personal life. Otherwise, it is just another click of the mouse.

Appropriately: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” – Ghandi

Why are businesses the only “bad guys” that this site wants to focus on? Aren’t they the reason we all can feed ourselves and our families? Isn’t it true that the better the businesses do that we work for or start up, the better we all do?

Isn’t it true that this site probably wouldn’t exist if the young-un’s who had the financial freedom to create such a site didn’t have parents with secure jobs in business and/or they had good employment with businesses themselves?

Isn’t it true that having healthy (read: financially strong) businesses is THE BEST way to have all the things we need and want (including social responsibility.) Ie, it’s healthy Toyota who can come to the us and build new, cleaner factories and create many hundreds of thousands of new jobs and sponsor various prgrams and things… while mismanaged, over-unionized Ford, GM and Chrysler loose thousands of jobs and are unable to make as good of an impact on society?

But isn’t it true that business is NOT always simple a zero sum game. That people who toil away and put their brains and energy to work GENERATE wealth that didn’t exist previously? Isn’t that why this country’s and others’ economies GROW rather than stay constant?

And that it’s governments who have even more power to make things worse for everyone? By restricting, rather than helping, business?