No more cuddly capitalism

If, like me,you didn't have the appetite to read about Julie's home life in today's Times, you might have turned to Carl Mortished's explanation of why it's all over for corporate social responsibility - as well as profligate government spending. In the age of austerity, he argues, newly-assertive shareholders demand a return on their investment and don't want their businesses spending money on environmental and diversity initiatives. The new imperative is to stay slim and efficient. It sounds tough, but it's a change in culture that might be welcomed by Britain's engines of growth: the small businesses and new start-ups who don't have the resources to pay for these kind of extras. A point picked up by that scourge of CSR, Irwin Stelzer in today's FT, who detects a shift in US policy away from protecting the big corporations and towards tougher anti-trust enforcement. As Stelzer has long argued, big business can live with heavy regulatory burdens, but if we want innovators to succeed, we have to give them a break or two. And surely the same goes for our public services - if we want to encourage innovative schools and healthcare providers then we mustn't saddle them with pointless bureaucracy and box-ticking. Lean doesn't have to be mean - in business or in government.