Please comment and grade my Issue Essay

[mrsultanmehmood]

Issue Essay

Some people believe that corporations have a responsibility to promote the well-being of the societies and environments in which they operate. Others believe that the only responsibility of corporations, provided they operate within the law, is to make as much money as possible.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.


The responsibilities of corporations have long been a contentous issue. However, based on careful analysis of evidence, it is concluded here that a balanced approach towards profit and social responsibility might be the most appropriate way forward.

People who argue that corporations have a responsiblity towards society and that profit maximizing endeavors can preclude this are basing their argument on a mistaken notion of the mutual exclusivety of profit making by firms and social responsibility. Indeed there have been instances, where large multinational corporations have been presumptuous. For instance, some companies in an effort to reduce costs dumped dangerous waste in the sea, greatly disturbing the aquatic ecosystem. Nevertheless, in the presence of sound environmental laws and safety regulations, these diasters could have been averted.

Related to this, expecting firms to be socially responsible might actually do more harm than good. Many peoples' employment depend on the profitibility of large corporations. In the environment of intense global competition, subjecting firms to prohibitively expensive regulations and legislating social responsibility for example funding of education etc can cause the corporation to go bankrupt in light of foreign compeition. Hence, in the long run, there is a net loss in the forms of jobs than possible gain in the future.

Another concern what the critics of profit motive point out is that corporations left on their own engage in exploitative behaviour, where they over charge their constomers. However, in a well functioning market this can also be averted through inducing competition and legislating anti-collusive laws, where any such exploitative behaviour is severely punished by rivals through under cutting their prices.

Conclusively, it can be argued that in light of appropriate legislations and safety standards, corporations should be allowed to freely engage in profit seeking. After all Adam Smith analysis in his 1776 classic, wealth of nations might carry some merit: "It is not through generosity of the butcher, the brewer, the baker that we get our meat, fine or bread, but it is through their on self interest, we appeal not to their humanity but their self love".

[tommywallach]

Hey Mr. Sultan,

I don't think is as strong an essay as your others have been. It's always tempting to take the middle ground, thus avoiding having to decide, but it often comes back to haunt you as you write. In this case, it's impossible to nail down specific examples, and I think you drift off-topic, because you're trying to do two things at once.

The prompt didn't ask you whether or not the two things were mutually exclusive, it asked you which of the two you are most closely aligned with. By dodging that question, I think you did yourself a disservice. You'd be better off saying something like, "While I don't believe that profitability and social responsibility are mutually exclusive, I think that a company should always err on the side of social responsibility." That way, you can give examples for your side of things (instead of trying to find examples that somehow illustrate both things happening at once), and still allow that it's a complicated issue with good arguments that can be made on either side.

Hope that helps!

-t

[mrsultanmehmood]

Thanks Tommy, very good points indeed.

[tommywallach]

Glad to help!

-t