CSR and ESG Versus Private Property and Free Markets

CSR and ESG Versus Private Property and Free Markets
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Mark Hendrickson
Updated:
Commentary

To whom are corporations accountable? For most of our history, the answer was straightforward. Legally, corporations were accountable to ownership—that is, corporate officers had a fiduciary obligation to strive to earn profits for corporate shareholders. Economically, corporations were (and remain) accountable to their customers—that is, they need to serve customers well by providing good value to them or else lose revenue and go broke. Morally and prudently, they were and are accountable to their employees—that is, pay them and treat them sufficiently well to retain the personnel and skillsets needed to produce and deliver the goods and services that the corporation provides.

Mark Hendrickson
Mark Hendrickson
contributor
Mark Hendrickson is an economist who retired from the faculty of Grove City College in Pennsylvania, where he remains fellow for economic and social policy at the Institute for Faith and Freedom. He is the author of several books on topics as varied as American economic history, anonymous characters in the Bible, the wealth inequality issue, and climate change, among others.
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