WTO Protests Portend Grave New World

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 10, 2000 | by Arnaud De Borchgrave

The Millennium Poll on Corporate Social Responsibility, conducted by Environics International Ltd., in cooperation with the Conference Board and Business Leaders Forum, showed that society's expectations of corporate behavior are evolving quickly. Interviews with more than 25,000 average citizens across 23 countries on six continents revealed the following results:

The majority of people believe their country should focus more on social and environmental goals than on economic goals in the first decade of the new millennium.

Two in three citizens want companies to go beyond their historical role of making a profit, paying taxes, employing people and obeying all laws; they want companies to contribute to broader societal goals as well.

Actively contributing to charities and community projects no longer meet people's expectations of corporate social responsibility. There are 10 areas of social accountability that now rate higher -- for example, protecting the health and safety of employees, protecting the environment and never participating in bribery and corruption.

Fully half the population in the countries surveyed is paying attention to the social behavior of companies.

Two in rive consumers report either rewarding or punishing companies in the last year based on their perceived social performance, and almost as many again have considered doing so.

Opinion leaders, in the same survey, believe that public pressure on companies to play broader roles in society likely will increase significantly at the turn of the century.

The late Isaiah Berlin, in his book The Pursuit of the Ideal, wrote that "utopias have their value -- nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human potentialities -- but as a guide to conduct they can prove literally fatal."

Globalists take heed.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is editor in chief of United Press International.