From Shared Value to Communism

The shared value article talks about the idea of shared value. Company can do actions that benefits both itself and also to society. This way, business could prevent being blamed for society failure.

The idea looks promising, but I doubt that whether it will really work in reality, even if I studied the ITC case. From the article, most of the "social good" part seems to be pure coincidence, or the side effect.

For example, one of the ways to create shared value opportunities is to redefining productivity in the value chain. It is claimed that

Today there is a growing consensus that major improvements in environmental performance can often be achieved with better technology at nominal incremental cost and can even yield net cost savings through enhanced resource utilization, process efficiency, and quality.

But what if the the environment-friendly equipment does not bring the cost saving with it? Or there's a process that lower the cost significantly but pollute the environment? The examples here just seem like "we use the new technology to save cost, oh by the way it's more friendly to the environment. Let's tell the press we are doing that because we want to good to society then." Another example is the ITC's effort to develop the waste land. It seems that the savings on carbon footprint is just a side effect of growing more trees for raw material supply.

Can a corporation operate mainly on social good? I would like to cite Thomas Joseph Dunning here, whose words are cited in Karl Marx's Capital:

With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both.

My idea is that shared value is too idealism and it's hardly usable in a fast-pacing market. Is there a solution to that? I think communism, or socialism can help on the situation. Adam Smith's invisible hand cannot do everything. There should be some external power to manage the things in a higher level. The idea of "higher order wisdom" to manage the market is the core part of socialism.

Why socialism can do better? An example is the cellular network infrastructure. In China, the leading carriers covers more than 99.9 percent of the land. Since the carriers are country-owned companies, the country can order them to do that regardless of how much profit there is in the most rural areas. However, in the US, you never know whether there would be signal will not. I was shocked when I went to Yosemite, and I got no signal form AT&T, in a National Park.