The age of responsibilization: on market-embedded morality

Abstract

This article explores emerging discursive formations concerning the relationship of business and morality. It suggests that contemporary tendencies to economize public domains and methods of government also dialectically produce tendencies to moralize markets in general and business enterprises in particular. The article invokes the concept of ‘responsibilization’ as means of accounting for the epistemological and practical consequences of such processes. Looking at the underlying ‘market rationality’ of governance, and critically examining the notion of ‘corporate social responsibility’, it concludes that the moralization of markets further sustains, rather than undermining, neo-liberal governmentalities and neo-liberal visions of civil society, citizenship and responsible social action.

Keywords:

• business ethics
• capitalism
• citizenship
• corporate social responsibility
• governance
• neo-liberalism

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Tamar Barkay, John Comaroff, Adriana Kemp, Yehouda Shenhav, Jonathan Simon and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Special thanks to Rivi Gillis for her support and insights.

Notes

1. I do not mean to suggest that ‘corporate social responsibility’ is a homogeneous and, moreover, an already established orientation of market actors as a whole. Displays of CSR vary considerably and not all corporations develop, respond and act on it in a unitary fashion. Corporations differ significantly from each other as their ‘socially responsible practices’ depend on factors such as vulnerability to consumer pressure, geographical location, their philanthropic tradition or risk-management approach (Klein, 2001; Shamir, 2004). The field of ‘corporate social responsibility’ is in part structured and precisely organized to identify differences among corporations, for example through the development of indices, rating systems and – on the academic front – through measuring the ‘social performance’ of various corporations.

2. A crucial distinction is in order here. The question of the relationship between economy and morality may be traced back to Adam Smith and has been a focus of contemplation ever since (see Alvey, 1999). A sub-field of journals also focuses on related issues (e.g. Journal of Markets and Morality) and, in general, the last two decades have seen what may be described as an explosion in writing about commerce and ethical questions (Carroll, 1999; Castro, 1996). Within this general framework, moral questions have often been discussed in terms of virtues such as honesty, punctuality, reliability, as well as charity and philanthropy and other inter-human virtues. At least for analytical purposes, it is useful to distinguish inquiries into the effect of commercial transactions on moral motivations and perceptions from that which concerns us here, namely moral responsibility in the sense of organized political action by institutionalized market actors (e.g. corporations, trade associations, global financial institutions). Clearly, this is a problematic distinction as there are many cross-over approaches from classic works such as those of Polanyi (1944), Weber (1978 [1914]), Hirsch (1976) and Sen (1987) to Carvalho and Rodrigues (2006) and Roberts (2003). However, the distinction is useful in limiting the scope and aspirations of the present study, focusing on the discursive and practical attribution of moral agency to corporations in the context of theorizing the deployment of social configurations such as governance.

3. For a critical discussion touching on this issue, see Carvalho and Rodrigues (2006).

4. Lemke looks at Foucault's 1979 lecture on neo-liberal governmentality and analyses the argument that the expansion of the economic form to the social sphere elides any difference between the economy and the social.

5. I do not suggest that states and state law are losing their importance. Variations abound, and state law is still primary in areas such as national security and immigration. Rather, I talk about the reconfiguration of state law and about trajectories that are most pronounced in the social regulation of markets (see Jessop, 1997).

6. See note 1, qualifying the generalized treatment of CSR in this article.

7. See the position papers of Proctor & Gamble, Nike, PriceCooperWaterhouse, Ford, Vodafone, Cadbury, Siemens, Kellogg, General Motors and British Petroleum, all submitted as part of a consultation process on corporate social responsibility held by the European Union in 2002 (European Commission, 28 November 2002, ref: 2002/109.07/UNICEcomments_final en.). Available at: <http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/soc-dial/csr/greenpaper.htm>.

8. Specialized and general business management journals seem to be playing a pivotal role in the practical dissemination of social responsibility. See, for example, Business & Society Review, Business Ethics: A European Review, Business Ethics Quarterly and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship. For an overview of these journals and their functions, see Paul (2004). In general, the business management literature is heavily biased towards ‘impact assessment’ studies of CSR (see, e.g., Moore, 2002).

9. For an overview of the ‘state of the field’, see Howitt (2002). Also see note 7.

10. For similar tendencies in the fields of humanitarianism and human rights, see Duffield (2001) and Dworkin (2006).