Robert Reich denounces CSR

Earlier, we reported on an unusual debate between libertarians on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Now, we learn thatRobert Reich, one of its former proponents, denounces CSR as a "dangerous diversion that is undermining democracy." From The Economist book review of Reich's Supercapitalism,

Mr Reich trashes the supposed triumphs of CSR. Socially responsible firms are more profitable? Nonsense. Certainly, companies sometimes find ways to cut costs that coincide with what CSR activists want...But “to credit these corporations with being ‘socially responsible' is to stretch the term to mean anything a company might do to increase profits if, in doing so, it also happens to have some beneficent impact on the rest of society,” ...

He certainly didn't learn this in business school. Curiously, Reich looks back to a post war era when shareholders did not exercise such tight control over managers, and when competition was more gentlemanly.

...Back then, big American firms enjoyed the luxury of oligopoly, he says, which gave them the ability to be socially responsible. Today's “supercapitalism” is based on fierce global competition in which firms can no longer afford such largesse.

I fearfully await the next logical step in this line of argument.