BUSINESS' MYOPIC VIEW-PROFITS VS BENEFITS FROM SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Dear Mr. DeYoung:
The urban blight, because of its concomitant insurgency of the city dweller, has finally been thrust before the all-too-unwilling eyes of the American public. Studies indicate that to alleviate the problem, we should spend many billions on our cities within the next decade. The problem grows worse daily; however, business resists government intervention and control.
Our skies are filthy with smog, smoke, soot, and stench; yet only legislation could force industry to place antipollution devices on its automotive products and the same seems true for its smokestacks. Our rivers are already fetid conduits; yet, for purely economic reasons, industry continues to dump its noxious by-products into public waters rather
than otherwise dispose of Our cities are a snarl of transportation congestion, yet business solves that problem by merely running away to develop new branches in unaffected areas. Our urban housing is often unfit for habitation ; yet, rather than redevelop close-in housing and recreation for its employees and potential customers, business does nothing until government urban renewal takes charge-then business complains of waste, graft inefficiency, and intrusion upon free enterprise.
What evidence of civic responsibility extending beyond the stockholder does business show? When will business relinquish its myopic view of "PROFIT NOW!" in favor of long-term benefits? Can you, as a businessman, feel proud of business'record on these important issues?
Yours truly,
Mark Bookspan Pre-Med, Ohio State
Dear Mr. Bookspan:
Unquestionably our central cities are faced with the explosive pressures being built by the interacting ills of slum housing, relative poverty, hard-core unemployment, traffic congestion, air and water pollution. These are not new problems, but the urgent demand for solution is underscored by the many episodes of readily-triggered violence now so commonly seen.
In turn, this has precipitated a trek to suburbia of such proportion that many downtown residential areas have been virtually abandoned to a highly explosive, usually non-white, residual population.
Yet paradoxically, as these crises worsened our overall economy has witnessed unparalleled productivity, higher employment, and better living standards for the larger majority of our population than ever in history.
There are no pat solutions to these problems. Consider for a moment the magnitude of the efforts during the past thirty years relative to urban renewal, public housing, and the war on poverty. The results have fallen far short of the expectations voiced by those who advocated massive public spending and the multiplication of additional governmental agency programming. In this context, I think it is not an exaggeration to say that the defining of goals for the community, and the determination of the means for their achievement, was regarded strictly as governmental prerogative and strictly outside of business' purview.
As Kenneth Clark, the well-known Negro psychologist, has said: "Business and industry are our last hopes because they are the most realistic elements of our society."
Yet there is now an increasingly vocal ground swell that private industry somehow holds the key to solving the more pressing urban problems-if only its attention can be diverted from its "blind pursuit of profits," and its social conscience awakened.
To assess the collective activities of business throughout the nation, in developing and implementing practicable solutions for varying aspects of urban problems, is manifestly impossible. But let me mention a number of typical examples in the field of air and water pollution.
The auto, steel, oil, rubber, lumber, paper, and chemical industries, to name a few, have expended literally billions of dollars in applied research and in the installation of mechanical apparatus for the appreciable reduction of smog, noxious fumes, dust, silt, and other air and water pollutants. Examples: the steel industry in the Chicago area has eliminated 27,000 tons of the 88,000 tons of particulate matter that accumulates annually to aggravate the city's air problem . . . Chrysler, Ford and General Motors have programs ranging from the control of fumes given off in painting auto bodies, and water pollutants from chromeplating processes, to dust
collectors at foundries, to intense research for economically practical auto exhaust controls... Crown Zellerbach has developed means to eliminate 90 per cent of the solids and 98 per cent of the hydrogen sulphide from gases leaving its kraft mills...
Dow Chemical has instituted various successful methods to reduce water pollution from industrial plant wastes, and to reclaim certain types of ponds and natural streams . . . In Goodyear, installation of a $750,000 waste water treatment system at our facilities in Gadsden Alabama, assures purification of millions of gallons daily before return to the Coosa River. Moreover, air and water pollution control equipment is being installed in some eight other plants, while all new facilities under construction, or those recently built, have such controls in their specifications. All of this has been done voluntarily. Does this action bespeak of "Profits Now," as you suggest?
Slum housing, hard-core unemployment education, and traffic congestion also are the focus of direct business involvement. In short, business is responding to the challenge of the times by channeling some of its capabilities directly to public sector requirements. Westinghouse, alone, is spending millions in this area and the list of others is considerable.
A thorough appraisal of the record, therefore, will reveal that the nation's business community both on its own and in concert with government - is developing, underwriting, and implementing, viable efforts to solve the problems which you rightfully say demand attention. In terms of responsiveness to these needs and increasingly effective solutions, I think a noteworthy record is in the making, with expenditures ranging in the billions. Without profits, this money would not be available for these programs, which offer no monetary return to industry whatsoever.
Business' success in such programs results solely from capabilities which have been perfected through the disciplines of our free enterprise system. Business' real forte lies in its effective meeting of customer needs and demands by the translation of creative research,production abilities, and resources through managerial skills under the incentive of profit-making.The profits generated as a result of this process provide the underpinnings of our entire economy.
In other words, business is in business to make a profit. It is only through the accrual of profits that funds are available for all social improvement programs whether originated by the public sector, or at the instance of business own initiative, or jointly with government.
But industry isn't the only source of air and water pollution, much needs to be done in the areas of public and private housing, sewage control, and garbage disposal just to name a few.
Sincerely, Russell La Young
Russell DeYoung, Chairman. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
IS ANYBODY LISTENING TO CAMPUS VIEWS?
BUSINESSMEN ARE.
Three chief executive officers—The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company's Chairman, Russell DeYoung, The Dow Chemical Company's President, H. D. Doan, and Motorola's Chairman, Robert W. Galvin-are responding to serious questions and viewpoints posed by students about business and its role in our changing society . . . and from their perspective as heads of major corporations are exchanging
views through means of a campus/corporate Dialogue Program on specific issues raised by leading student spokesmen.
Here, Mark Bookspan, an Ohio State Chemistry major, who plans a medical career, is exploring issues with Mr. DeYoung.
In the course of the full Dialogue Program, David G. Clark, a Master of Arts candidate at Stanford University, also will explore issues with Mr. DeYoung, as will David M. Butler, Electrical Engineering, Michigan State, and Stan Chess, Journalism, Cornell, with Mr.
Doan; similarly, Arthur M. Klebanoff, Government, Yale, and Arnold Shelby, Latin American Studies, Tulane, with Mr. Galvin.
These Dialogues will appear in this publication, and other campus newspapers across the country, throughout this academic year. Campus comments are invited, and should be forwarded to Mr. DeYoung, Goodyear, Akron Ohio; Mr. Doan, Dow Chemical, Midland Michigan; or Mr. Galvin, Motorola, Franklin Park, Illinois, as appropriate.