Who Do You Trust?

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

The Edelman PR firm's annual eight country survey found that "pressure groups and charities have overtaken governments, media and big businesses to become the world's most trusted institutions." The trend was most pronounced in the United States, where trust in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) climbed 20 percent since 2001. The Economist says that NGOs' push for corporate social responsibility (CSR) shows that they don't understand capitalism. "The human face that CSR applies to capitalism goes on each morning, gets increasingly smeared by day and washes off at night." Pressure from NGOs resulted in a total PR victory against business, but "CSR reflects a mistaken analysis of how capitalism serves society."

Main Source: 
Financial Times, January 23, 2005
Topics: 
Corporations
Public Relations

Comments

daigu replied on

Its complete nonsense to think that there is any such thing as "corporate social responsibility." There may be the occasional co. that is honest about this, but as long as the capitalism as constitued remains defined by the "bottom line," it will all just be hyperbole of the worst kind, benefiting those who have most to gain, in most cases, as usual. "If we accept what they are giving us, we deserve what we get."