Gordon Gekko’s Worst Nightmare
Could it be that Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good” mantra is turning on its head for a more noble, “Greater Good is Good”?
Maybe.
On February 10, New York will join six other states that over the last two years began to permit businesses to incorporate as “benefit corporations,” a classification that allows companies to legally build “doing good” into their for-profit business models.
Benefit corporations are required to create positive social and environmental impact, and in exchange, benefit from expanded legal considerations of stakeholders beyond purely financial interests. And it’s not nonprofits or tax-exempt businesses that are incorporating, but for-profit entities, like Patagonia Inc., who have made social benefits paramount.
This is not just warm and fuzzy talk in a CSR report. These companies are required to report on their performance towards achieving social impact targets (which they are mandated to clearly specify in the bylaws) in an annual audited report.
What would Gordon Gekko say to this new legal structure that allows companies to consider social benefit over profit? My guess is he’d be utterly baffled since his worldview is grounded in the belief that it is a zero sum game where somebody wins and somebody loses.
Sorry, Gordon, but greed as a business model is about as out-dated as your insanely large 1980s cell phone.
