Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Socially Responsible Investments - Capitalism With A Conscience

Capitalism with a conscience? That's the idea behind so-called "socially responsible" investments - buying stocks in companies that are screened for criteria like good labor practices, sustainability and whether or not the company is involved in arms manufacturing. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, an industry association, claimed in its latest report from 2012 that at least $3.74 trillion in the United States is invested with environmental and social impacts in mind.
Some socially responsible investments (SRI) weed out cigarette companies like Philip Morris; others shun companies with poor environmental records, like BP. But whichever investments you choose, there's a good chance you'll be profiting off companies with bad human rights records because the backbone of many SRI funds are consumer technology stocks - companies like Apple and Samsung, which have histories replete with labor and privacy abuses.


China Labor Watch (CLW) is one of the groups that investigates ongoing labor problems; Kevin Slaten is its US-based program coordinator. He spoke to Truthout about the reports his organization has conducted on Apple, which started to be heavily scrutinized around 2010 when activists brought attention to child labor in some of the factories used by the computer giant. Some of these same factories were the subjects of protests over a number of Chinese labor law violations and mass worker suicides.
According to Slaten, "We constantly find these symptoms, but the disease underlying these symptoms has not been properly taken care of for years. The disease is these companies want the most amount of products in the shortest amount of time."

(* At this point the article continues with examples and details of various companies and ways in which they are perceived not to be socially responsible.)
And to conclude:
 
SRI companies have some catching up to do. As it stands, "socially responsible" funds are saturated with the shares of tech companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple that make huge profits off of selling surveillance equipment, and off the backs of low-paid laborers who are worked to death, literally.

To actually be "socially responsible," SRI funds would need to utterly change their methods and goals. "We really do believe in the power that responsible investment has to improve companies," said Bennett Freeman, senior vice president for sustainability research and policy at Calvert, an all-SRI investment company that manages over $13.5 billion in assets for half a million US account holders.

"At the end of the day," said Calvert's Freeman, "we're in the asset management business. We're in the business of making solid returns for our account holders."

Profits trump everything else.

from here

 "We constantly find these symptoms, but the disease underlying these symptoms has not been properly taken care of for years. The disease is these companies want the most amount of products in the shortest amount of time."
SOYMB cannot agree with this statement. We believe the diagnosis to be wrong.
Capitalism and its profit motive would be a more accurate, if brief, diagnosis of the disease.
JS




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