I got an email from a reader today who asked whether I thought a "proactive stance" on corporate social responsibility would have prevented the Martha Stewart situation. I don't see how, but that may be because I don't really believe in CSR. I've got several articles that explain why in more detail:
- In Defense of the Shareholder Wealth Maximization Norm: This essay was written as a reply to an article in the same symposium by Professor Ronald M. Green - "Shareholders as Stakeholders: Changing Metaphors of Corporate Governance," 50 Wash. & Lee. L. Rev. 1409 (1993) - in which Professor Green criticized the dominant view of corporate governance, according to which directors have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder wealth. In sharp contrast, this essay argues that the principle of shareholder wealth maximization is both a valid positive account of corporate law and also a legitimate normative proposition.
- Catholic Social Thought and the Corporation: Human dignity and freedom are central principles of Catholic social thought. This essay argues that preserving the economic freedom of corporations to pursue wealth is an essential part of effective means for achieving human freedom. To the extent prudential judgments about corporate regulation are required, the Church and civil society should strive towards a nuanced balancing of freedom and virtue.
- Community and Statism: A Conservative Contractarian Critique of Progressive Corporate Law Scholarship: The bulk of this essay is devoted to exploring the emerging communitarian theory of the firm. In the course of doing so, however, I also begin developing an explicitly conservative version of the law & economics account of corporate law. The essay looks to the intellectual tradition that runs from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk to articulate an alternative to both the left communitarianism of progressive corporate law scholars and the classical liberalism embraced by many practitioners of law and economics.
