Just five minutes ago, I had a very interesting conversation with one of my "frat brothers" about CSR and businesses that view social benefits as part of its bottom line.
This conversation started from the dreaded question of what is AIESEC. I for some reason hate answering that question because it is so hard for me to collect my thoughts at once and produce an answer that does any justice, but this is a personal problem. Anyway, he started to pick apart AIESEC's mission. This kid is the typical isolated American. Furthermore, he is a business major so he is a staunch capitalist, which is not a bad thing. However, my arguments for why CSR was needed along with triple bottom line organizations was not being accepted at face value. Mind you, he just wanted to debate, and I'm always down for a little intellectual wrestling match.
To make a long story short, I feel good because I put some ideas into his head to make him look at the objectives of business and examine if they are sustainable and ethical. I tried to get him to look at the overall entropy that exists in the world and that things are not getting more simple and less fucked up.
He tried to pick apart that global warming is occurring and that the world is going to reach its carrying capacity shortly, especially as oil starts to run out. The craziest thing was that he thought that AIDS does not affect him and that he is not at risk. He assumed things would stay the way they are, which is not the way of the world.
I told him basically that the corporations that exploit the poor uneducated people without giving anything back are not sustainable because eventually these people will realize this blunder. Competitors with CSR or social benefit platforms that work will gain competitive advantage and take over the market share of the exploitative organization. I expect venture capitalists to expect businesses to consider social platforms in the future so that business positively affects the world by solving its problems technologically, financially, and socially.
Learning networks are cool.
