From Corporate Responsibility to Corporate Design

In historical perspective, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices are but a modest diversion from the long march towards the dominance of capital interests in shaping the modern corporation. Business leaders operate today inside a corporate design of ownership and governing structures largely inherited from the 19th century. Corporate design is the missing business and public policy issue of the day. It is connected to countless other major issues: the working poor, the shrinking middle class, wealth concentration, the ecological crisis. Corporate design has never been subject to the processes essential to building any governing institution, the processes by which governing frameworks have been forged in democratic nations the world over. Creating new corporate architectures rooted in principles such as these does not depend solely on internal corporate initiatives, government mandates or civil society pressures. Principles related to corporate conduct, of course, have existed for many years.