CSR is not necessarily illegal. If the board of directors believes (and can convince the shareholders) that a failure to reduce the companies harmfulness will result in lots of protests which will harm public relations and damage the image and the brand then the company may (and indeed must) legally reduce its harmfulness.

I hear what you're saying - I know that profits must come first. But sometimes being a little bit less harmful (which let's face it is what CSR is about) can be good for profits.

Well, I should have been clearer, but if you pursue the link it makes more or less your point - CSR is "illegal - unless it is insincere". The link directs you to a review of Joel Bakan's excellent new book "The Corporation" - a film based on this book will be appearing in the UK soon. I strongly recommend both. The point is that CSR can take mild forms such as Pfizer giving away free trachoma treatment drugs to Third World countries. They cost very little, and Pfizer can always write it off as a charitable contribution - but the rewards in terms of PR and trust from prescription-happy doctors are invaluable. But when costs outweigh benefits - such as if BP were to neglect to drill in the Arctic Circle, where it is likely to have severe impact on the local people, but will reap huge benefits for BP - then it becomes illegal for company bosses and executives to engage in CSR. As Milton Friedman would have it, if some sappy corporate executive wants to dole out charity and alleviate human suffering he should do it with his own money...

... Corporate Watch's report
'Corporate law and structures: Exposing the root of the problem.'

Explains for non lawyers what everyone needs to know about corporate law and why corporations will always be part of the problem.

www.corporatewatch.org.uk/publications/corporate_structures.pdf

Does everyone need to be sincere? In a sense, CSR is about making it unnecessary to worry about the morality of business types by making good behaviour sit well with financial motivations. Isn't it better to try to make step-by-step changes in people's behaviour rather than campaign for a futile change in attitudes?

I feel such CSR-cynical views as yours are aimed, justifibly but in a rather exaggerated way, at a right-wing extreme of the business world. It's not all like that. Milton Friedman, for example, is very much a writer of the past, and a bit of a joke in most business circles.