American corporations plainly are smarting from the accusation that they've abandoned their sense of social responsibility in pursuit of higher profits.
You can tell that by the defensive indignation with which the business community has greeted President Obama's rhetorical attacks on "millionaires and billionaires." And by Bank of America's defensiveness in spinning the cancellation of its $5 debit card fee as rather an act of consumer altruism. ("We have listened to our customers very closely," a spokesman said.)
Then there are the CEO statements collected by Harvard Business Review for an online forum titled The CEO's Role in Fixing the System, some of which carry the whiff of the heebie-jeebies experienced by ancien regime dandies facing down a torch-bearing mob of Jacobins.
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