From Donald Tsang's latest Policy Address,
"To encourage the business sector's participation in helping the poor, I have decided to set up a Community Care Fund, to which the Government and the business sector will each contribute $5 billion to support people in need in areas not covered by the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme."
$5 billion! Drawing alone from the above excerpts, the business sector seems to be gaining grounds for being generous to and caring for the community. Can the government together with the business sector bring about social change? It reminds me of not the so-to-speak anti-rich atmosphere but Michael Edwards's latest book on social change and business, in particular on the claim that business thinking can save the world is a convenient myth for the super-rich-and-powerful. (Small change: why business won't save the world (San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010)).
The business-is-best philosophy has been prevalent and powerful in the society by applying the magic of the market to the challenges of social change. It provides a magic bullet that removes social inequality and "a route to doing good for others" while gaining good fame. Such ideas, Edwards contends, are "disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst"
I think it is worthy to quote the following excerpts from his preface:
"When business puts its own house in order in this this way [philanthropists' roles on social transformation], it can have an enormously positive impact by increasing the social and environmental value of the goods and services it produces, improving the quantity and quality of the jobs and incomes it creates, and acting as a good corporate citizen...That's a very important point: It has always been civil society and government that have pressed businesses to do these things." (p. x. emphasis mine)
To exercise their influence effectively, He adds, both government and civil society need to be strong and independent. Are we?
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