THBT the only social responsibility of corporations is making profits

1. THBT the only social responsibility of corporations is making profits Adjudication Chula-MUIC Adjudication WorkshopHosted at Mahidol University International College 30 June 2012

2. Outline • Decision • Issues • Speaker-by-speaker feedback

3. Decision • The Government Team wins by a 2.5 margin

4. Issues • What is corporate social responsibility? • What is corporations’ role in making profit? • What is the government’s role in regulating corporations?

5. Corporate Social responsibility? GOVERNMENT • CSR is charity, and should be done voluntarily by corporations OPPOSITION • B/c corporations are only recently recognized as “legal persons”, they are given the ability to exploit. This is a new phenomenon in 21st C. • CSR bypasses bureaucracy, as opposed to taxation • Mandatory CSR is a social multiplier

6. Corporation’s role in making profit? GOVERNMENT • Corporations’ goal: Profit and expand & Profit helps society OPPOSITION • Corporations: have the responsibility to replace back what they used (trees)

7. Government role? GOVERNMENT • Government’s role:To maximize liberty of its people • Gov’t can tax b/c they can better allocate resource OPPOSITION • Status quo: not sufficient in addressing the psychological & emotional impacts • Even in tax: progressive nature: more damage, more payment; more clout, more payment • Government can force duties on its people as long as it helps society (compulsory organ donations)

8. Speaker-by-Speaker Prime Minister (76) • Well structured • Improvements: • example too extreme: Shell not forced to help eradicate AIDs, but they should be responsible to clear up oil spill in the delta • Better delineation why CSR is separate from the profit motive; characterize CSR more vis-à-vis profit Leader of Opposition (74) • Engagement: hard-line • CSR: mandatory • Progressive tax; more burden b/c size • Psychological/Emotional harms could have been further substantiated with better examples

9. Speaker-by-Speaker Dep. Prime Minister (74) • Adequate rebuttals, but: • More direct response to the corporations as ‘legal persons’ would be preferable • Good analysis on how current harm already dealt with by law • Pure pursuit of corporate profit allows better CSR Dep. Leader of Opp (75) • Cont’d: laws create bare minimum; CSR goes beyond that minimum • Gov’t builds roads, but corporations can do the the same (practical); but • Lacked coherent principle reason why CSR should be a duty • Gov’t can impose duty; not fully linked back. • Mandatory CSR is a social multiplier (still practical, not principle)

10. Speaker-by-Speaker Government Whip (76) • Responsibility is not determined by the size of corporations • Laws are enough to regulate harms of “evil” corporations • The only duty of corporations is to make money • Because opp’s def of CSR is vague, gov’t exploited this by dismissing it Opposition Whip (75) • Cont’d: because of large impact, higher burden, but: • Did not justify burden in addition to taxation (principle), and; • justify why CSR is better than taxation (practical) • Had good example on military service as additional burden, but didn’t link back to how this justifies additional burden imposed on corporations by mandatory CSR

11. Speaker-by-Speaker Government reply (37.5) Opposition reply (37)