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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2023
For a thought to change the world, it must first change the life of the one who expresses it.
– Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935–59Opening a new factory at Pozzuoli, near Naples, on 23 April 1955, Adriano Olivetti gave a memorable speech to the workers. The following is an excerpt:
Can an industry take on purposes? Are these found simply in the profit index? Beyond its apparent rhythm, is there not something more fascinating, a destination, a vocation, even in the life of a factory? … The Ivrea factory, although operating in an economic environment and accepting its rules, has turned its purposes and its primary preoccupations to the material, cultural and social elevation of the place where it was called to operate, launching that region towards a type of new community in which there is no substantial difference in purposes among the protagonists of its human affairs, of its history made day by day, to assure a future to the children of that land, a life more worthy of being lived.
(Olivetti [1955] 2012: 28–9; emphasis added)At a time when it was broadly accepted that the cause–effect dynamic was sufficient to understand the world, Olivetti did not hesitate in stating that a company that wants to consider itself civilly responsible cannot avoid the question of the purpose for which something is done or considered good. It is interesting to compare Olivetti’s words with those of Michael Hammer, one of the best-selling business and management authors:
I’m saddened and offended by the idea that companies exist to enrich their owners … That is the very least of their roles; they are far more worthy, more honourable, and more important than that. Without the vital creative force of business, our world would be impoverished beyond reckoning.
(Quoted in Hevesi 2008)If we look carefully at the debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) today, we see a problematic framework emerging. To understand why, it is necessary to frame the new phenomenon of CSR within the ethical and civil valuation of the market economy.
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