" In this volume, leading thinkers in contemporary political theory and international relations provide a comprehensive investigation of the new pluralism, ...
The claims by the Building Societies Association (BSA), some mutual building societies and other observers that mutual status is associated with higher levels of charitable and community involvement than public status banks are tested using the proxy of charitable donations in cash as a proportion of profits before tax (PBT). Using a sample of 31 of the remaining 65 mutual societies and the population of U.K.-based retail banks and still-independent demutualised banks, two hypotheses were tested: first, that charitable giving as (...) a proportion of PBT over the period 1990–2003 was higher for mutuals than banks and second, that longitudinal records of charitable donations as a proportion of PBT for former mutuals will show a lower rate after demutualisation. Neither hypothesis was convincingly supported allowing for the conclusion that any claims suggesting that mutuals are structurally more generous than public companies are not supported by empirical evidence. (shrink)
This paper briefly reviews the theories that seek to explain the phenomenon of corporate charitable donations and then provides a review of the empirical issues that have arisen in previous studies in this area. The findings of an analysis of charitable donations data from the entire U.K. FTSE index for the years 1985–2000 are then reported. These findings include the observation of a time-related increase in charitable donations, which is compared with an earlier study to give a 24 year history (...) of charitable donations in the U.K. The findings note little responsiveness of the monetary value of charitable donations to the economic performance of firms. An international comparison over time against U.S. trends is also reported and shows how U.S. corporations have traditionally been more generous than U.K. firms, but that the trend in the U.S. is downwards. Membership of a U.K.-based "tithing" club (the PerCent Club) is shown to be associated with higher profit performance against non-members. Members' charitable contributions against profit are shown to be higher than the FTSE mean although short of the 0.5% target figure in "cash" terms. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of these findings in relation to the theoretical positions advanced for corporate philanthropy. (shrink)
The most valuable political theoretical contribution made by Marx's idea of socialism is towards the resolution of the seeming opposition of mass democracy and rational government. Marx follows Hegel's redefinition of political rationalization as the actualization of the nascent self?consciousness of the existing ethical world when he uses socialism as a statement of those tendencies of bourgeois society that will create the perspectives of social awareness that allow mass democracy. This thesis is made against aspects of the interpretation of Marx's (...) relation to Hegel in Bolshevik political theory. I claim that the Bolshevik idea of socialism as the militant political intervention of the dictatorship of the proletariat develops, through Engels, a position taken with respect to Hegel's philosophy of right in Marx's Rhenish Journal articles. This idea is, however, pre?Hegelian in the sense that it is open to a democratic criticism based on the philosophy of right understood in an alternative fashion. In his writings after leaving the Rhenish Journal and up to the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Marx makes this alternative available, and the notion of socialism he arrives at here turns on an awareness of the contradictions which make the militant political imposition of freedom impossible. Whereas for Bolshevism socialism is to be imposed on existing society, for Marx it is more the development within that society that makes possible mass democratic freedom. (shrink)
