????企業的職責是什么？賺錢，還是其他什么？

????隨著“公益公司”（一類必須對社會產生積極影響的新型公司）的興起，以及今年4月孟加拉血汗工廠坍塌造成人員傷亡，各界呼吁企業嚴加管理供應鏈之后，這個話題引發了熱烈的討論。

????但這個話題并不新鮮。四十年前的6月，也就是1973年的6月刊《財富》（Fortune）雜志就刊登過吉爾伯特?伯克一篇有關“‘企業責任'風險”的文章。一方面，伯克援引米爾頓?弗里德曼的話稱，企業的宗旨是實現利潤最大化，而不是按他的說法，“用屬于別人（即股東）的錢去解決社會問題”。

????弗里德曼曾經說過：“商人沒有錢可以花在社會責任上，除非他擁有壟斷的權力。任何參與社會責任活動的商人都應立即遭到反壟斷訴訟。”

????站在這個巨大鴻溝另一邊的是理想主義者們，伯克寫到，他們“是自以為道德的極端”。這些倡導者們認為，除了“遵守法律，企業應當積極提倡減少污染的措施，擴大少數人權益，總體上成為模范公民，同時積極承擔與模范公民相關的所有成本。

????不過，四十年前的《財富》雜志也曾暗示，或許還有第三種方式；認同社會責任或許不只是意味著花錢。現實世界紛紛擾擾，社會責任能以自己的方式影響在這個世界中經營的企業的盈利狀況。四十年后再來看看伯克文章中提到過的一些公司以及企業社會責任的普遍現狀，這種觀點似乎已經勝出。

????《企業力量和社會責任》(Corporate Power and Social Responsibility)一書的作者、加州大學洛杉磯分校(UCLA)教授內爾?賈克比是第三種方式的早期支持者。“我并不是要求企業光干活，不掙錢，”伯克援引賈克比的話說。“但政治力量就像市場力量一樣真實，企業必須對它做出回應。”

????對于舊金山Levi Strauss & Co.面臨的選擇，伯克就是這樣定性的。“許多仰慕這家公司的人也都注意到了，它有3%的稅后凈利潤來自精心挑選的社會責任項目，”伯克寫道。但“Levi Strauss顯然從這3%中得到了很多。它在一個非常開明的城市經營，市場品味受到年輕人的高度影響。因此，不管公司高管內心信奉什么，他們的社會責任支出看上去是相當有效的公關。”

????四十年后，Levi Strauss的許多企業社會責任項目仍注重涉及舊金山政治的相關事宜。Levi Strauss & Co負責社會和環境可持續發展的副總裁邁克爾?柯博瑞說：“80年代初，我們是第一批認同、推行艾滋病教育和工作場所政策的公司之一。”1991年，“我們是第一家制訂全面供應商規范的服裝公司，要求合作伙伴達到勞工、環境、衛生和安全相關標準。”

????What businesses owe the world: Then and now

????What is the role of a corporation? To make money, or something else?

????It's a heady debate these days, with the rise of "Benefit Corporations" -- a new class of corporation that requires a positive impact on society -- and calls for companies to police their supply chains in the wake of April's deadly factory collapse in Bangladesh.

????But it's not a new debate. Forty years ago this month, in the June 1973 issue of Fortune, Gilbert Burck wrote about "The Hazards of 'Corporate Responsibility.'" On one side, he quoted Milton Friedman, arguing that the purpose of a business was to maximize profit rather than, in Burck's words, "tackle social problems with money belonging to other people (i.e. their stockholders)."

????As Friedman said, "No businessman has money to spend on social responsibility unless he has monopoly power. Any businessman engaged in social responsibility ought to be immediately slapped with an antitrust suit."

????On the other side of this yawning chasm you had idealists, who "tend to extreme forms of self-righteousness," Burck wrote. In addition to "mere compliance with the law, say the advocates, business should actively initiate measures to abate pollution, to expand minority rights, and in general to be an exemplary citizen, and should cheerfully accept all the costs associated with this good citizenship."

????But perhaps, Fortune hinted, there was a third way; a recognition that things termed social responsibility might not just translate into money out the door. They could impact, in their own way, the bottom line of businesses operating in a real and often messy world. Forty years later, looking at some of the companies mentioned in Burck's piece and the broader state of corporate social responsibility, this view seems to have won out.

????Neil Jacoby, author of Corporate Power and Social Responsibility and a professor at UCLA, was an early proponent of this approach. "I don't really ask companies to do a single thing that isn't profitable," Burck quoted Jacoby. "But political forces are just as real as market forces, and business must respond to them."

????That's how Burck characterized the choices facing Levi Strauss & Co. of San Francisco. "As its many admirers note, the company contributes 3 percent of its net after taxes to carefully chosen social programs," Burck wrote. But "Levi Strauss is obviously getting a lot for that 3 percent. It does business in an intensely liberal city and has a market in which tastes are heavily influenced by young people. And so, whatever its top executives believe in their heart of hearts, their social-responsibility outlays would appear to be rather effective public relations."

????Forty years later, many of Levi Strauss's CSR programs still focus on issues that fit with San Francisco's politics. Michael Kobori, vice president of social and environmental sustainability at Levi Strauss & Co reports, "In the early '80s, we were one of the first companies to acknowledge and address HIV/AIDS education and work-place policies." In 1991, "We were the first apparel company to establish a comprehensive supplier code requiring our business partners to meet standards related to labor, the environment, and health and safety."