What Is the Canonical View of Corporation Responsibility?

Economists say that the main goal of a business is to maximize its profits. According to the canonical view a business or a corporation has completed the task of the social responsibility with this maximization, always of course by obeying the laws. But the question that arises under this consumption is whether or not a company must be ethical and behave to its employers and its customers as if it was a good and moral citizen; or as the book says `'a good citizen''.

From the theory of the psychological egoism we know that human beings are selfish and self-interested. They care only about themselves, they are not capable for unselfish altruistic actions and they do not care for anyone else unless they have to gain something from them. Of course all these are in the nature of every human being and actions like those are not making people mean. Likewise corporations care about the maximization of their profits and not more those of another company. In the case of the people, they desire to improve them selves and to satisfy their desires. They can achieve that by using different methods, one of which is work ; since the money one earns satisfy his needs and desires and finally it makes him happy. In the case of a company, again money is the answer to the problem since it is the mean for profit maximization. We can say that both people and companies act almost in the same way: by their self-interest, which is the descriptive claim because this is what is happening in the reality.

Based on this descriptive claim now, the canonical view of business social responsibility is trying to identify what we ought to do,in other words it changes this descriptive claim into a prescriptive one. According to this people have to be self-interest and companies ought to maximize its profits by obeying the law. A corporation is swan as a society. A good organized society would take care of its citizens. It would protect them by making a fair distribution of the wealth and capital and would solve the problems with new regulations and laws that will help not only people but companies as well to achieve their goals (Personal and professional).

From all the above we understand that the canonical view of corporation responsibility is against the `'laissez-faire'' theory that says that it would be better if the government did not get involve into businesses.