Will the economic collapse help or hurt noble goals?

Companies seem to be intertwining capitalist goals with moral ones. Google’s primary rule is “don’t be evil,” and just about every company now touts its sustainable and green policies. Guy Kawasaki advises in “Art of the Start” that products should make meaning, specifically, “make the world a better place.” One of my students questioned how this could be a realistic goal for a company, or even an advisable one. She was exactly correct; how sensible is this? A more sensible argument is that a company’s goals should be more centered on creating value for consumers and ensuring stakeholders are satisfied.

Much of the consensus on the democratizing nature of the Internet is well founded. Access to communication channels online are (generally speaking) unimpeded, and allow for bidirectional communication. The immediate goals of companies are informed by public response, in the form of quick feedback and increased transparency, which the Internet has a knack for channeling. Still, fundamental obligations to stakeholders (employees, stock-holders) remain, particularly amid a particularly unstable market (online advertising). The worry of mine is that there is a second dot-com bubble growing. Companies are marketing ridiculous functionality that is not desired by consumers, and over-estimating their ability to provide it. My quibble is not so much with the idea of “doing good,” but the ability of your average small to medium-sized company to effect this kind of change. The question is, right now, a rather rhetorical one: is power incompatible with concepts of larger social change online? Or will more noble goals allow companies to flourish in ways previously impossible?