Corporate Social Engineering

Watching Simon Schama’s wonderful American Future again this weekend I found it fascinating and chilling to hear about Ford’s early C20th efforts to encourage its immigrant workers to speak, think and act like ‘real Americans’. It made me think about the power of companies and the current fad for CSR in all its many guises. The term which came to mind for me was Corporate Social Engineering (CSE) but I was not sure if this was a real term or if I had just made it up.

So I went to a well known search engine – to remain nameless to protect you from the effects of its CSE – and did not actually find very much. There were a few rants and I think I saw Noam Chomsky had used the term in a broader sense of ‘government-corporate social engineering’. Below are two examples of CSE I found:

• “In efforts to create a loyal, productive and “Americanized” workforce, CF&I was a pioneer in corporate social engineering. Under the direction of its chief surgeon Richard Corwin, the company created a Sociological Department in 1901. The new department was charged to oversee the “betterment of the workers.” The company sponsored lectures on hygiene, civics, politics, home economics, history, and the dangers of communism. Classes in English, sewing, citizenship, electrician training, cooking and many other topics were provided for workers and their families. Kindergartens were started in mining camps to help form good citizens, who would in turn, become good company employees. CF&I made a considerable effort to dominate all aspects of their workforce’s lives.”
• “Marketing, corporate social engineering, has become so ubiquitous in our society that it has come to define it. Without a doubt, it has come to drive much of society; as it is a primary engine of the overconsumption, materialism, and consumerism that so defines our culture, it may even be a primary driving force.”

I have never been a great fan of ‘CSR’ – mainly because a great deal of it seems like green-wash. I actually feel quite sorry for companies which these days often look like bunnies in headlights – “hang on you asked me to make money for my shareholders and give you cheap energy and now you say I can’t mine the tar sands?” As far as I am concerned much of the things we are asking companies to do these days are just not possible in the current system of corporate-consumer-capitalism. That’s why in Citizen Renaissance we are calling for a radical new Wellbeing Economy and Capitalism 3.0.

If you breed a dog to be dangerous it’s going to bite. Sharks are likewise unlikely to be flipping soft toys for you. And Turkeys don’t vote for Xmas. OK, so that last example was a bit random but I was just checking you were still with me. But actually that saying does have meaning for this questioning of the relative role and responsibilities of companies in society. Now clearly we are not hearing many banks calling out for more regulation. But Easyjet is now asking for green taxation and progressive business leaders like Mark Moody-Stuart are very willing to call for smart, outcomes based regulation when its needed to help companies ‘internalise externalities’

Likewise the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change has shown itself happy to call for changes to the rules of the game to help them deliver carbon emissions cuts. OK so it’s only a letter once every few years and it’s not exactly hyper-radical. But it does show a recognition that the current rules of the game are set up pretty much exclusively to support the concentration of wealth and wellbeing in the hands of the few already wealthy of the planet and in the process rip the guts out of its natural systems.

CSE as a term has very spooky undertones. There are of course companies whose brain-prints on society are akin to huge social engineering programs – I’m thinking particularly of the mega-powerful and usually unregulated media companies. Also the advertising world and the marketeer in The Corporation movie who was so proud of the way she used pester-power psychology. For me the real responsibility for companies is to lobby Governments with their peers to ensure that the rules of the game are changed. Setting up and managing the market is the role of Governments; working within those rules is the role of companies. So we as citizens need to support any companies willing to call for radical changes to the way the market functions and punish those that do not.