The corporate social contract : from enlightened monarch to accountable democarcy : CSR and sovereignty
Date
2006-12
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Increasing inroads by the citizenry, at least in the Western paradigm for the past half millennium,
has marked the history of the state as far as accountability is concerned. This process eventually
culminated in the modern republican or associated form of democratic governance. Central to
this evolutionary process was the notion of the ‘Social Contract’, famously nurtured by the late
Enlightenment French philosophers. This concept relies on the notion that the state is crucial for
civilized life, yet its power has to be curbed to avoid draconian excesses of power.
An analogous process, it might be argued, exists in relation to the citizen-corporate social
relationship: that this should come to be governed by what could be termed the ‘Socio-Corporate
Contract.’
At present, the great majority of resources are mobilized by private entities, albeit at times in
relation to the state, where the state plays a merely facilitating role (Cavanagh et al. 2003;
Krasner 2001). This inherently goes to the core of any equity argument. The majority of resources on the planet that are mobilized by and transformed for human consumption:
democratically viewed, the citizenry should have some or other governing say over the way in
which the majority of resources are mobilized and the manner in which the accrued benefits are
distributed (Sachs 2002). Marxist as it may sound, the foundation of such an argument could
conceivably, and probably ironically, be traced back to the same type of philosophical
foundations that spawned the libertarian republicanism upon which so many of our political
Rechtstaat-values are inherently based. From this perspective such a ‘Socio-Corporate Contract’
seems essential, if not inevitable. The form that it would take, though, will probably continue to
haunt our governors and rebels alike in the decades to come (Hutton 1995; Also see: The King
Report on Corporate Governance in South Africa 2002).
Description
Thesis (MPhil (Public Management and Planning))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.
Keywords
Dissertations -- Public management and planning, Responsibility vs accountability, Sovereignty, Social responsibility of business, Democracy, Social accounting, Theses -- Public management and planning