ABSTRACT
Aswe saw in the previous chapter, codes of conduct are icons, and can become battlegrounds over control, of the moral high ground in a dispute between a corporation and its critics or antagonists. But whichever role they play, there is at least some agreement on both sides that most or all of the broad values that tend to be expressed in such codes are commonly held by both sides and by the public as well. The same cannot be said of a second mechanism by which Progressive activists attempt to pressure corporations to adopt their preferred policies and practices, the anti-corporate campaign. Here the strategy of attack is more likely to be of the take-no-prisoners variety, and although such campaigns tend to be waged within a frame of pro-social themes, the emphasis is much less on moving toward common values than on exposing and redressing supposed corporate evil-doing. Indeed, where such campaigns are being waged, a debate over a code of conduct, and for that matter the use of financial and proxy-voting pressures by socially motivated funds and organizations, may be but one or two theaters of war in a far broader conflict.
