Abstract
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been a highly debated topic during the last recent years in most developed and developing countries. We can today distinguish among three main general views on the role that CSR could play in shaping companies' policies. The first view on CSR, which has been summarized by the Economist in the 20th of January 2005 issue, is, as the British weekly magazine titled, sceptical. I highly recommend you to go through that issue; making a brief summary the idea of the Economist is that CSR is useless since companies should only care about what they are supposed to do (maximize shareholders' profits) and should not do more than obeying to the existing law that regulates business. The Economist clearly states that it is the role of governments to ensure civil, political, and social-cultural rights of people, and to make laws to prevent discrimination and to protect the environment. Companies should follow such laws, but not do more by themselves, since this would be harmful to their business.
