Dear employer, in a recent article (La Vanguardia, 31 January) by Professor Wheat, also executive director of Fomento del Trabajo Nacional, exposed their concern that Spain is seeking to regulate social responsibility (CSR) and therefore appear a series of mandatory regulations. He gave two reasons to justify his concern: a) we can not ask the company that is dedicated to eliminating the problems of the society if it is not his purpose, and b) is required to regulate CSR when the recommended European Commission as a volunteer, here it is required. But the underlying problem, as the author says literally, is the questioning of the legitimacy of their own business in which to judge actions that are outside its scope.

Wheat I think is right. A time to observe here, that some people use CSR as ideological argument to question the capitalist system and uses it as a substitute for Marxism of the twentieth century, replacing the need to abolish capital accumulation and the exploitation of man by man through the dictatorship of the proletariat, the more sophisticated idea of ​​forcing the company from public authorities to take over the social problems surrounding it. In short, if we end up with the company since the revolution will do since the imposition of obligations.

Those who think and act so unaware of the nature of capitalism, companies, employers and history. Trade, the foundation of economic activity has always been present, there are references to the year 3000 BC in Mesopotamia and modern companies today, the heiress who appears in the nineteenth century, part this evolution. Evolution continues and that is part of the debate on their own social responsibility.

But it is also true that the dissemination of concepts, with all that is good for the influence on the values ​​and mental models, sometimes, they lose their own essences and trivializes. It is likely that something is happening, and if it were so, what is needed to strengthen them back to the sources. Maybe if the CSR does not remember the contributions of the sixties and seventies of last century and is sufficient to recover the definition that comes to the EU in 2001 in the Green Paper the European Commission to promote a European framework for corporate social responsibility where he said that CSR is a concept under which companies decide voluntarily to contribute to achieving a better society and a cleaner environment. Obviously, this definition raises, then, what content should be better this society and which are at least the minimum of a cleaner environment, but that does not charge the company. In any case, I think this is an important contribution, making the company is located at the same level as the individual in ethical and moral terms.

Being that way, and I refer again to those who question the reason for the company when it calls for regulation of CSR, demanding that the company is obliged to contribute to the achievement of a better society will also require the obligation of all citizens of this contribution and punish them if they do not comply.

Dear employer, this is an absurd totalitarian logic: forced to contribute to a better society! Who defines this society? We all strive to make every day better and evolution makes it more today than in 1905, then anyone could contaminate and nothing happens, today it is not, and it is not the rise companies, not anyone. The values ​​of society change and therefore change the values ​​of the companies, and we can not ask companies is not what we ask our fellow citizens and therefore, when we refer to social responsibility to make reference to beyond the legal requirement because we believe that we must do. At the end of the development of CSR is closely related to the development of mature individuals within organizations.

In short making it practical, a company supplying electricity, water or gas can demonstrate their commitment to social responsibility, for example, charging the bills to the affected district of Caramel, or a financial institution to defer payment received from the mortgage and understanding and helping those who have lost everything. It is your obligation? No. We should be? I think not, but it does contribute to a better society.

Please do not take the concepts in it.

Joseph Albet

Professor at ESADE

Director DIRECTORS ALBET BCN

jalbet@albetconsellersbcn.org