Anyone who starts a business has a choice; either they maintain the principle of generosity or the principle of greed. In todays business environment, unfortunately, experts scoff at win-win situations. They say it is impractical. They say the business world is a brutal one, one of fierce competition and cold-hearted uncompromising profit taking and profit keeping–where the more profit the better. The big greedy multinational corporations have even taken greed to a new level. They too acknowledge the benefits of being generous and they don't want to lose out on these benefits. However with greed firmly planted in their organizations the idea of giving up profits is a super taboo. A solution for the greedy appeared when they realized that to get the reciprocal benefits of generosity they don't have to be really generous, they just have to make a show of generosity–enter CSR. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the big buzzword along with Environmental Responsibility.
CSR as an extra-business venture is not required for businesses and commerce with a heart. Community welfare concerns are as important to them as their business, in fact they go hand in hand as part and parcel of business. There is no need to make a big show of doing charity to the community because businesses, commerce and community form important supporting chains within social ecologies that are curcial for balanced and prosperous living as a whole. Giving generously off profits as social responsibility and for goodwill in the form of government taxes, employee benefits and donations are accepted responsibilities of persons or groups getting rich off their community. Compare this to the big corporations that earn profits in the hundreds of millions, even billions but give out paltry sums back to the community. Greedy corporations insist that their sole fiduciary responsibility is to their share holders who are only happy when profits are on the up and up. The stake holder's (read the larger community) welfare from whom they depend on for business is the concern of the governments, not theirs. When they have to make contributions to their stake holders, usually out of compulsion rather than generosity they like to make a big deal out of their contributions and command recognition for their feigned magnanimity by insisting that their CSR is a selfless favour to their community. They also milk as much publicity as they can out of their CSR by paying for media coverage (that is if they can't get if for free!) to turn it to a brand marketing exercise on top of the tax breaks that they can claim from governments. How can CSR be goodwill if companies are simply fulfilling a need begrudgingly. To add icing to the cake of greed, in an effort to safeguard the bottom-line even very rich corporations will insist that their lowly paid employees contribute their personal funds, time and effort for 'the good cause' to reduce company funding. Thus in adapting with times greed has become more sophisticated as feigned generosity.
The very fact that there is such a thing called CSR shows just how removed commerce and business are from societal welfare. It used to be natural for the rich business community to be magnanimous in charity without need for recognition because they understood that the if the giving stops the getting will eventually grind to a halt and bad blood will result between the business people and community at large. Today large corporations can get away with lots more greed through their multinational operations where the can hide their greed by exploiting corrupt governments in other countries where human rights are negligible. When you live in a Third World or Developing Country you can see this very clearly. Since there is no such thing as minimum wage, apart from super-well-paid top administrative executives, other white and blue collar employees are squeezed for effort with as little pay as the corporations can get away with.
Greed of course is not a sustainable mechanism in any ecology. Collection and hoarding of resources concentrated in a small elite group who disassociate themselves from the greater community will eventually become detrimental to the elites themselves. When a tipping point is reached in exploitation, uprisings occur in communities that are unfortunately brutal and anarchist against the elites. This scenario plays out now and then–the Arab Spring Revolts is an example.
It is without a doubt that greed will eventually strangle itself, especially now with the cry of the exploited becoming deafeningly loud as populations increase and resources become more and more limited. In the end the greedy will have to ask themselves, how else and where else can they hide all their excesses. To date we still haven't discovered another habitable planet that one can escape to, instead our world is getting smaller with larger populations and connectivity created by technology. Eventually even the greedy will have to acknowledge that they are part of a social ecology that can only thrive if equitable balance is achieved. No matter how much wealth the greedy have at their disposable they cannot, try as they may, stay apart very long from this ecology.
The bigger question is what to replace the current systems that encourages greed with? Current economic models in place are easily exploited by greed. It is useless to have painful revolutions only to replace one set of greedy elites with another who can get corrupted by money and power under the same system. Granted that the current economic models available to us, when used according to their ideals can be the solutions, so instead of 'reinventing the wheel' we simply use the current models with some modifications so elements that represent generosity are factored in place with their ideals better guarded and implemented. The solution must also be global and not given to choice by National governments. A global solution will require some sacrifices in the convenience of business and commerce. However if we are committed to a utopian future we will realize that sacrificing for the greater good of community which is a cornerstone of generosity, are sacrifices worth the effort and price. If we can accept this, then the battle is already half won and a brighter and more equitable future is on the horizon for our kind.
For an entertaining study of Economy, comic style like the pix above check out this book–well worth your time!
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