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Protest at Ethical Corporation Conference

imc-london features | 15.05.2004 16:06 | Globalisation | London

On Tuesday 11 May, a greenwash business conference took place in north London under the name of 'What's the Point of Corporate Responsibility', organised by Ethical Corporation magazine. Seminars at this conference, which was attended by the likes of Shell, BP, Gap, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss and Marks & Spencer, included discussion-topics such as "Why should Chief Executives take Corporate Responsibility seriously?", "Is Corporate Responsibility simply another management fad?" and "How smart companies are using CR for commercial objectives."

In the late afternoon around sixty demonstrators congregated outside the Marriott Hotel in Swiss Cottage, where the conference was taking place, and engaged in a festive protest whilst refusing to accept the absurd proposition that corporations actually want to be held accountable. The picket was called under the name of "Corporate Responsibility? You're Having A Laugh!". The protestors included a samba band, activists of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign and London Rising Tide, and comedian Mark Thomas, who managed to avoid the £295 registration fee and blagg his way into one of the conference's seminars where he pressed the panel with questions from the floor. Report and Photos



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I agree

30.05.2004 10:52

Yeah I agree with that TOTALLY. It's all bullshit. It reminds me of some commentary a friend of mine wrote on the sydney INDYMEDIA site.

YOU GUYS ROCK.


ANTIcapitalist
mail e-mail: antiCAPITALIST400@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://progconservative.blogspot.com

after effects of the first international

27.05.2005 22:25

If you recall the First Marxist International with Marx and Engels themselves occurred in the UK and the split of the 2nd International led to the WTO. It is consistent that the most interesting organisation/media related to what people are calling Corporate Social Responsibility would be based in the UK. If you look at Antonio Gramsci's idea of 'passive revolution' then you would understand that not all, and perhaps more of the revolutionary changes that are taking place will not be violent. Finally, Marx said the only barier to capital is capital itself. Three cheers to all who stood up and voiced their greivances with corporate behaviour, but better yet continue to organiuze sytematically while entrenching new kinds of capital to teach corporations to behave ethically. This move is not a bad thing, we just need to make it be sustainable. Let's continue the critical edge, but let's not bullshit ourselves and act as though this world around was not created for good and bad around the concept of corporate organisation.

rhymus