Corporate Power and Responsible Capitalism? ― Towards Social Accountability

Citing today’s business corporation’s resemblance to past priestly/kingship castes of failed civilizations, which “dis-embedded” from the social relationship on which life was founded and from the natural environments on which the population depended, Jones aims to (1) identify the economic and socio-political roots of multi-dimensional corporate over-reach and (2) provide a critical analysis of contemporary strategies for containing or curbing some of this over-reach, particularly focusing on corporate responsibility/accountability. Eleven chapters are divided into three parts: context and history; social embedding and disembedding of business systems; the pursuit of responsible capitalism. Chapters are: a climacteric of corporate crisis and over-reach; the “Anglo-Saxon” business corporation; social challenges for corporate accountability; the neo-liberalisation of big business; financialised market accountability and the empowerment of shareholder value; contextualizing the neo-liberal model; alternative, socially embedded business systems; communitarian solution; environmentalism and social movement influences on corporate responsibility; corporate voluntarism; embedded accountability. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Bryn Jones, Senior Fellow, Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, UK