Letter to the Editor: Business Roundtable vs. the social contract

In a Sept. 13 Editor’s Comment in BioCentury, our Washington Editor Steve Usdin writes about the importance of the biopharmaceutical industry renewing its commitments to the social contract under which corporations do business and reap profits in the expectation that society is better off when they do.

Usdin’s commentary was triggered by the recent “Statement of Purpose of a Corporation” by the Business Roundtable, which rewrote the corporate mission to add “stakeholders” - employees, customers and communities - and actually listed shareholders last. To put it mildly, this was a departure from the long-standing notion that the principal objective of a company is to generate economic returns to its owners (see “Another Chance to Renew The Social Contract”)...