미국에서의 기업의 사회적 책임

The financial crisis reminds us how entwined some corporations-notably large financial corporations-are with the economy and society. Although a number of factors contributed to the downturns of the past century, corporate disregard for the greater public interest played a role. The problem with the dominant conception-shareholder primacy and wealth maximization--is that the directors are encouraged to demonstrate their allegiance to shareholder interests. This behavior leads to an unremitting focus on the short term. Legal debates over corporate social responsibility in the U.S. stretch from the 1930s to the twenty-first century. They have engaged some of the leading legal minds of the century, and advocates and enemies of corporate social responsibility still win publication in the country’s most prestigious legal journals. Contemporary works on corporate social responsibility touch on deep and important questions: what does the corporation owe to its shareholders? to its workers? to the larger community? But there is a problem with these debates: they rarely seem to go anywhere. The starting place for any proposed reform is simple acknowledgment that corporations should be restrained by public responsibility. This is barely hurdle, since most scholars and commentators acknowledge that corporations have ethical duties, and a public purpose has historically guided corporate activity. Unfortunately, corporations are not required to perform acts that are beneficial to society; rather, they merely need to refrain from acts that harm society. Some scholars insist that the public duty must be defined and codified. The United Kingdom enacted the Companies Act of 2006, which could offer guidance for what might the legislation of public purpose look like.