A New Paradigm: How Social Movements Shape Corporate Social Responsibility After the Financial Crisis

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) looks at the different dimensions of the relationship between the business and the society. Most of the current theories and points of view are, in our view, part of a paradigm of economic thinking established by the Chicago School of Economics represented by Milton Friedman who, since 1970, decreed that the only aim of business is to make profit (Friedman, M. ([1970]2007). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. In W. Zimmerli, K. Richter, & M. Holzinger (Eds.), Corporate ethics and corporate governance (pp. 173–179). Berlin: Springer). New social movements, amplified by the financial crisis from 2007, like Occupy from the USA, Indignados from Spain or Uniti Salvam! from Romania shape a new paradigm to define CSR, inspired by the social and political texts of Noam Chomsky (Chomsky, N. (2010). Hopes and prospects. London: Penguin Books; Chomsky, N. (2011). Occupy the future. Retrieved April 23, 2016, from https://chomsky.info/20111101/; Chomsky, N. (2012). Noi cream viitorul. Ocupatii, interventii, imperialism, rezistenta. Bucharest: Corint). As part of this new Chomsky paradigm, the responsibility of the business must be oriented toward the whole society. In our view, this is a new paradigm, not a new theory, because the premises on which it is built are contradictory and mutually exclusive to the premises of the old Friedman paradigm. The question of the authors is if, after the financial crisis and in the context of the social movements which are becoming political movements too, we will see a paradigmatic conviction or conversion.