Comments on: Post-crisis, Capitalism now a focus for CSR, says Lifeworth Review

By: Is Capitalism in Question? « Adrian Henriques

Is Capitalism in Question? « Adrian Henriques — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:44:34 +0000

[...] Capitalism in Question? The excellent review of 2009, ‘Capitalism in Question’ breaks one of the stronger taboos or our time: daring to debate the place of business in [...]

By: Roger Burke

Roger Burke — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:09:06 +0000

I like the front page, deliberately mimicking the Coca-Cola look.

This is a brave assertion: “It’s simply that we need more governance of capital by people who are directly affected by its ownership and control.”

Quite simply, where do you end “governance” and how to contextually define “directly”, given the interdependence and inter-connectivity of finance and economy?

I’ve downloaded the report. After reading, I’ll come back here if I have anything useful to say.

I’ll say this much, however: to have any real effect, there must be a paradigm shift in global thinking, a change only likely to occur over a long term, I’d suggest.

Regards,

Roger Burke.
Bellmere 4510
Queensland

BA (Griffith 2007)
MA (Swinburne 2009)

By: Pierig

Pierig — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:25:30 +0000

Very interesting article.
I am working on daily basis with the contradictory requirements of the market and the buyers on social grade in Asian factories. Buyers want to work with better factories, but always claim that their competitors works with the cheapest ones. So they have no choice but to work with the cheapest ones which are usually not the best on social topics.
But they are ways to do both, by having a pragmatic and step by step approach. There are many difference between not taking working condition into account at all, and selecting only the social top grade factories. It is what I try to do with my customers.
Here, it is good to see that people working on a wider level confirm that rethinking the business is necessary.

I would add one important point for me. Actually the human beings. As I told above Buyers usually would prefer to choose other factories, but the system don’t let them easily. And the people who have “design” the system are not aware of the actual situation in factories. Actually, the system often seems to run by itself. The buyer have to explain its decisions to his/her boss, who have to answer to shareholders, who who are actually represented by employee of big investment companies, and these employees have to explain their decision to their boss…
It seems the responsibility of the decisions is very difficult to tell, and that’s probably not normal.