Monday, April 23, 2012

Is it socially responsible or a smoke screen?


In our readings it talks a lot about how big corporations need to become more social responsible and that this is one way that we can have a better civilization and creates a socially sustainable environment.

This makes me wonder about all this and the cynic in me says that it’s all a bunch a crap. Even if these companies are taking steps to become more socially responsible how much of it is just a smoke screen to make the rest of the terrible things they are doing seem less terrible because of the random good things that they are preaching they are doing. To me the majority of it is nothing but just a cover up to make them seem good and then the reality of it yea they are doing these small things good things but they don’t make up for the bad stuff they are doing or fix any of the bad stuff and to top it all off are getting tax breaks or government subsidies for doing it in the first place.

Just as an example, if you look at what BP is doing about their oil spill and the clean up process. You see these commercials that say the area is getting cleaned up again and the communities are recovering and all these wonderful things, and these messages are designed to make you feel good and that they are being socially responsible for the disaster they caused. The reality is the area is still suffering dramatically, and BP has been doing things but you know that it is the absolute minimum that they can get away with and they are using these ads and other things to try and throw up a smoke screen to make people think that they actually care, when in reality that place was devastated and will be for a long time and if BP can convince enough people that they have done some great things and fixed everything then it is a easy avenue to cut and run before the process is really taken care of.

So as good as the process of becoming socially responsible is I feel like it can be more of a manipulation tool to present them as better than they are or cover up some other sort of BS that they are conducting.

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