kishor Jagirdar

I have been watching the debate around   “the case against CSR”   with interest. The fundamental point where we all seem to get stuck is around “the role of business.” Economists and many CEOs argue that the role of business is to  maximize  shareholder profits, whereas the CSR community talks about contribution to society for the greater good. I believe that the essential problem about the role of business cannot be resolved within our current framework of thinking unless we add another element – “The element of Trusteeship.” The TATA group of companies is based around this principle. Trusteeship is the model of responsibility that best describes the group founder – JRD Tata’s view of himself and his role in the world. It was a view that JRD essentially derived from Gandhi. Gandhi talked frequently about the role of business as being that of a trustee or a steward for what you hold. Gandhi’s view of trusteeship was based on the belief that we do not really ‘ow...

Since about 1999, media pundits have been predicting the imminence of two things: breakdown of the US economy and the end of dollar hegemony. The first has more or less happened now. I have argued earlier in previous articles in this column that, in the long run, demographics will largely determine the economic/political shifts which normally follow major episodes of global recession. The recent meeting of the G20 called to discuss measures to tackle the current global meltdown, made all the necessary Keynesian noises and, most important, established the need for a continuing multilateral dialogue for economic cooperation. The second issue regarding the role of the dollar as the principal reserve currency also came in for some discussion with suggestions about the need for a second Brentton Woods conference to reform the global financial architecture. As in the 1940s, the discussion has centred around world liquidity and the dollar’s hegemony. Joseph Stiglitz is also reported to have m...