CSR and the Public/Private Divide

Abstract

Ellen Hertz’s manifold critique of corporate social responsibility (CSR) paradoxically begins by establishing common ground with the ardent defender of free market capitalism and an otherwise political opponent to her normative framework, Milton Friedman. Building on his analytical framework, according to which corporations and government operate on different principles, Hertz reinforces the idea that CSR cannot and should not replace democratic mechanisms in the determination of the public interest. In addition, following established critiques of CSR (e.g., Shamir 2008), Hertz highlights that CSR introduces the logics of the market in areas traditionally governed by different logics of action, while it also serves to obfuscate relations of power and to shape global governance in corporate-friendly directions.