I am getting sick-and-tired of how many ‘experienced’ Labour bloggers, wonk-types and other politicos have no business nous. Please, when you’re reporting it, be aware that this is not a political idea which has come out of nowhere. It is a fundamental concept on all of the major corporate websites, including corporate law firms, called ‘corporate social responsibility’, explaining how corporates should have due respect for people, planet, and profit. For Greens, there’s an emphasis on the environment, for the Conservatives shareholder dividend (including A4e and G4s); but for us, even though we’ve been educated to be ashamed of them, the workers, you know the people who keep the education and health service alive – the Unions, the largest democratic movement in this country (as Owen Jones recently described in his set piece speech for NetrootsUK 2012). It’s really important that politicians who are involved in creating law understand what is going on in the outside world, particularly since many of them have no other experience, save for being a SPAD or other professional type. I should then like to defer discussion of this to Prof Michael Porter, at Harvard. He is saying exactly the same thing as Ed Miliband’s ‘responsible capitalism’ formulation. For people who do not understand the value of the workers in the organisation, or the value of the customers, often ignored in the public sector or in utility companies, this video is well worth watching.
A senior business professional in the US, Michael Hopkins, describes the situation well:
“A heady mix of greed, overconfidence and the use of poor business models that showed up flawed strategies caused the global financial collapse of one year ago.Banks and other financial institutions are once again in the news for paying huge bonuses on the backs of taxpayers’ bail outs.Is the merry go round of greed, overconfidence and flawed strategies about to spin again?”
Here is an extract from Polly Toynbee’s absolutely brilliant (in my humble view) op. of it:
“Miliband owns this turf: he earned it with his conference speech, considering the contempt from Cameron’s press and Blairites fearing he’d fatally broken the New Labour formula. Now he says he is breaking with that Labour past, and Cameron’s present. There is nothing anti-business about cleansing cheats, asset-strippers and vultures from honest savings and good business enterprise: Cameron has been forced to agree.
How has this change happened? UK Uncut‘s pithy demonstrations at TopShop and Vodafone graphically exposed tax avoidance. The Guardian’s Tax Gap series on companies avoiding £25bn tax through havens and loopholes provided facts. Occupy captured a public anger that conventional politics ignored. The High Pay Commission, set up by the left-leaning thinktank Compass, proved hugely influential, as did Will Hutton’s report on high pay in the public sector, blaming City contamination. London Citizens galvanised communities. Avaaz and 38 Degrees with their petitions raised the decibels. Drip, drip, drip, the ice thaws, and the outlandish becomes conventional when working with the grain of public opinion.
Miliband’s message today is important. Social democratic values are more vital in hard times when there is no money. How you share diminished resources matters more than how you share a growing cake. Labour always said cuts were inevitable, and now there is less money since Osborne stifled growth and added to the deficit. Hard choices for how we tax and spend need social democratic priorities: we are not all in it together when I get un-means-tested winter fuel payments, free travel and heavy pension tax relief with no perceptible cuts.”
Meanwhile, Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School. As here, a university professorship is the highest professional recognition that can be awarded to a Harvard faculty member. Porter is a leading authority on company strategy, the competitiveness of nations and regions, and strategic approaches to societal problems, Professor Porter’s work is widely recognized in governments, corporations, non-profits, and academic circles across the globe. A sought after teacher, he also chairs Harvard Business School’s program for newly appointed CEOs of multibillion dollar corporations.
Based on the work of Porter and others, Hopkins concludes, “Moreover, the collapse of firms such as Enron, Lehman Brothers, and (now largely in public hands) General Motors who all suffered from poor strategic models shows that new business strategy models are essential. And, as argued here, a key message is that CSR is becoming a, if not, the core of business activity.It is fast becoming acknowledged that a strategic stakeholder model of engagement with the business environment means that the potential for avoiding disasters and increasing success and innovation can be increased.CSR is obviously not a panacea for all ills but more and more companies are seeing that it can enhance their competitive advantage.”
I am prepared to bet a huge amount of money that Ed’s speech for the Labour Conference in 2011 will be seen in retrospect as one of the most important political speeches of a generation in my lifetime.
Source: Harvard website.
For a fuller explanation, you are strongly advised to refer to this blog.
