Two legs bad?

This week in a survey of the corporate social responsibility movement The Economist worries

A dangerous myth is gaining ground: that unadorned capitalism fails to serve the public interest.

It’s easy to forget that capitalism in Western countries is lavishly adorned–with securities regulations, environmental restrictions, laws to protect workers’ safety and compensation, and an erstwhile civil society in the watchdog role.  In developing countries, to mix metaphors, capitalism often operates without the gloves, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily antithetical to the public interest. 

The entrepreneurial spirit is strong in Uganda

What, then, is the well-intentioned multinational corporation to do as the corporate social responsibility movement goes mainstream?  The Economist has long fretted about corporations mucking up their responsibility to add value and create jobs by dabbling in social projects better left to the public sector and NGOs, yet it recognizes the potential for a win-win when companies act “responsibly” and also get some marketing bang for the buck.

Overall, the magazine gets it right.  It’s not the job of corporations to solve the ills of society through active interventions.  But if the heightened visibility of corporate actions (thanks largely to the Internet) means that doing the right thing also means appealing to consumers, then companies can raise the quality of life in areas where they operate as they add jobs and generate profits, even if the institutional adornments of capitalism are not yet in place.  This requires, however, that consumers vote with their dollars.