Corporations are assholes

Charng writes:
corporations
Corporate contributions for charitable and similar purposes were $2.7 billion in 1980 (Frederick 1983), $2.9 billion in 1981, and $3.1 billion in 1982 (Galaskiewicz 1985). On the other hand, "

have never approached the limits of giving encouraged by Internal Revenue Service rules, which until
1981 permitted the deduction of such contributions up to 5 percent of pretax income and now allow up to 10 percent of pretax income. The

national average for corporations hovers around 1 percent " (p. 149). Our focus in this review has been on individual motivations for altruism.
Thus, to pursue the "corporate actor" in depth would be to go a bit far afield. Is there any evidence for corporate "altruism?" The

answer[‘s] appears to be "no." Fry et al (1982) note that "Existing literature has focused on [there are] three rationales for corporate
philanthropy: through-the-firm giving [by owners and managers], corporate statesmanship [social
responsibility], and profit motivated giving" (p. 94). Their review of past work and their own results suggest little support
for either of the first two possibilities. Their conclusion is that "it would seem ill-advised to use philanthropy data to measure altruistic responses of corporations" (p. 105). In agreement with
earlier results of Galaskiewicz (1985), Moore & Richardson (1988) conclude that "Peer group pressure has also been an important aspect of encouraging a growing corporate responsiveness to these social issues" (p. 270).

Rationales… based on community or morality… had [no] effect at all on the level of company
"

giving" (Galaskiewicz 1985, pp. 215-217). Clarkson (1988) analyzes the "corporate responsibility" of 32 corporations in
Canada and essentially concludes that giving is good for business.

Corporations not altruism

Charng writes:
Normative
Our conclusion from the limited literature we have been able to discover on corporate responsibility is that "enlightened self-interest" rather than altruism is what drives socially responsible behavior in this area.

pressures can increase social responsibility, largely because such pressures lead corporate officers
to perceive that socially responsible behavior is in the corporation's own best interest. Although
individual corporate officers may feel empathy or have "group-oriented feelings," corporations obviously do not. The
behavior of those corporate officers, acting for the corporation, must be largely determined by the
self-interest of the company. If altruism is seen as based on those feelings, then, corporate
philanthropy is not and cannot be altruism.