Corporations and Their Contributions to Public Debate

Increasingly corporations are engaging in 'social issues', articulating in favour of particular current common causes. Regardless of whether one personally supports the positions corporations are taking, this article considers the legal validity of corporations expending resources in this manner. On one view a corporation should be directed to profit maximisation, so expenditure on social causes may be beyond scope. Others argue this is justified by 'corporate social responsibility' or the 'social licence' that a business has.