Big issues of social justice are big business for corporate ‘citizens’

As Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave riffed at a press conference this week about political corruption and the Irish housing crisis, it reminded me of just how enthusiastic the corporate sector has become for aligning itself with social justice movements.

There was a time when businesses would run a mile from such debates. No more. Whether it is Twitter calling for a Yes vote in the Irish same-sex marriage referendum, Cosgrave holding court on housing (and, by extension, the linked homelessness crisis) or Google paying for coding lessons for women and minorities, big social issues are now for big business.

The quaint old notion of corporate citizenship has taken on a whole new meaning. But these citizens don’t need a vote. They wield their influence in other ways.

By touching on housing and corruption, Cosgrave, of course, was also ensuring that his briefing to announce expansion at Web Summit – which hosts MoneyConf in Dublin this month – would receive maximum exposure in the press. He is a businessman after all. Why pay for publicity when you can push social-issue hot buttons and get it for nothing?

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Cosgrave is becoming more and more like Michael O’Leary by the day. Soon he will be turning up to briefings dressed as a bishop, demanding governments give his business even more things for free.

Social justice issues such as feminism, environmental concerns and fair play on housing were traditionally left-wing preserves, and generally gained little traction in the corporate world. Even into the 1990s, when the environment was the first left-wing issue to go mainstream, corporates still saw this stuff as window-dressing. When Friends Provident (now owned by Aviva) launched its Stewardship Ethical Fund, it was quickly dubbed the "Brazil fund" – because you'd have to be nuts to invest in it.

The page has since turned. The traditional left-right spectrum on social issues has been demolished. Activists who revel in their left-wing identity now routinely find themselves aligned with some of the largest publicly listed businesses on the planet. For example, pharma behemoth Pfizer, global hotel brand Marriott, and Disney (market cap $150 billion) were among the corporate old guard who challenged some US states in 2016 over laws that threatened rights of members of the gay community.

The most noise on social issues, however, comes from the Silicon Valley giants, and other tech companies in their orbit. Don’t be evil, Google has always implored us, implying that it is concerned only with doing good. Social justice fits neatly with such companies’ carefully-honed images as hip, youthful and socially aware.

Ireland is Silicon Valley’s most important outpost, given the preponderance of web giants who have made the State their international home. It is natural that they would import their glossy Californian corporate activism into Ireland. Twitter’s call for a Yes vote in the 2015 marriage referendum was pitched by the company as good for its employees, and good for Ireland (which few would argue against now). It was clearly good for Twitter’s image and its standing with local legislators, too.

The company, perhaps unwisely given the lopsided final result, didn’t attempt to repeat the trick with a Yes call in last week’s abortion referendum. Its compatriot Google still had its say, however, banning all referendum advertising for both sides in the full knowledge that this could benefit one over another.

Given the scale of No’s defeat, it probably made little practical difference in the end. But it was still unsettling for those of us who prefer our elections to be for the people – Irish people, that is, not Californian.

The State lobbying register reveals that Apple has previously pushed the State on health policy, which is a bit of a head-scratcher. But it is housing that has emerged as the hot-button topic that appears of most concern to the web giants in Ireland.

The issue is a little more awkward for, say, Airbnb, which is accused by some on the left of contributing to the housing crisis by taking stock out of the market. But others, such as Amazon and our own Silicon-Paddy hybrid, Stripe, have directly lobbied the State on housing.

Stripe, Amazon and Web Summit may argue that their public interventions on housing are not social justice posturing. Rather, they can argue it is directly related to their day-to-day business because their staff cannot find places to live. This is true.

But there is still a spin-off publicity benefit by association. Even though the housing shortage is really only tangentially related to the issue of street homelessness (which has its roots more in deficiencies around mental health and drug treatment policy than housebuilding), the two topics are always conflated as one in the public eye. Lobby on housing, and you’ll be seen to have been lobbying on homelessness.

Of course, the other side of the double-edged sword for socially-conscious Californian web giants is that many social issues can be solved by more State resources, paid for by taxes. Here, they are on shakier ground, given their known talents for tax-avoiding. (Web Summit, as an indigenous, Irish-domiciled company, isn’t in this category).

The big social justice issue that feeds into almost all others is poverty. The bald truth is that the only known cure for poverty is employment. The best cure for a lack of employment is economic growth, spurred on by greater productivity and technological innovation.

There, our new titans of industry are on firmer ground, and can make a more lasting contribution to the greater good.

First impressions of INM’s ‘third-party’ strategy

The move by Independent News & Media (INM) to launch legal action against its former chairman Leslie Buckley is simply the natural progression of the argument it has been making for weeks: that the company is prepared to go after "third parties" accused of engaging in activities that caused damage to INM.

This has been a central plank of its strategy to resist the appointment, sought by the State’s corporate watchdog, of High Court inspectors to investigate a range of issues, including a data breach that may have included journalists’ sources.

It will be interesting to see if INM launches similar actions against other “third parties”. As the court affidavits clearly show, Buckley didn’t carry out, or resource, the allegedly damaging activities all by himself.

And if INM is so determined to go after third parties, why doesn’t it just accede to the appointment of inspectors? They would have the authority to make demands of those involved to produce material that might help everyone get to the bottom of the issues at hand, thus potentially arming INM with the evidence required to go after all such third parties.

Are taxi owners driving the campaign against rickshaws?

The State's proposed ban on rickshaws, ostensibly on safety grounds and to combat petty drug dealing, looks a draconian move. Why can't Minister for Transport Shane Ross just come up with an appropriate method of regulation instead? It can't be that hard, Minister.

The Minister has said that the majority of the 4,000 respondents to a public consultation on the future of rickshaws wanted them banned. Could it be many of those respondents were taxi drivers, who compete with rickshaws?

Ross's proposed ban was heartily welcomed by posters on an appropriately-named Facebook page, Ban Rickshaws in Dublin. Its administrators are not clearly identified on the page, but appear to be members of the taxi-driving community.

Before they celebrate their victory, those behind Ban Rickshaws in Dublin should also address their own excesses.

This includes the cover picture for the Facebook page, which includes an ugly caricature of a foreign rickshaw driver (most are Brazillian) that appears to play up to the worst of racial stereotypes.