Fortunately, there are still some corporate warriors who understand that businesses do not have social responsibilities; only people do. And, inasmuch as corporate leaders work for shareholders, their responsibility is to pursue the best interests of those investors – interests that relate primarily to making as much money as possible while complying with the laws, regulations and ethical norms of society.

Regrettably, millions, if not billions, of corporate dollars are now being diverted from investors and redistributed elsewhere by this unholy alliance between corporate managers and activist groups who are accountable to no one but themselves. After all, Mother Earth did not go to the polls to cast her vote for Greenpeace, and the peoples of Africa, Asia and South America have not appointed Oxfam their official representative when it comes to economic development, workers’ rights, health and safety and the environment.

I often wonder how the millions of people who have died from malaria would have voted if they had been given the chance to elect or reject the activist groups who systematically denied them access to mosquito-killing pesticides because they know what’s best for indigenous people. Or, how about the people who have been denied the benefits of running water, electric power, modern agriculture and, yes, the revenues from natural resources because these things just did not fit into the activists’ concept of sustainability and social responsibility? How would they vote if they had a choice?

The net-net of this spectacularly undemocratic process called CSR is that the activists are being aided and abetted by some business executives in their efforts to dictate business policies and expenditures based on their vision of what is sustainable, equitable and fair for the rest of us.

The solution to the CSR threat is actually pretty simple. What shareholders need are facts; facts about how their investments are being shanghaied by the CSR movement to undermine free enterprise and promote corporate socialism. This is the fact-based advocacy employed by the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF), which uses its status as an institutional shareholder to “inform and persuade companies to focus on increasing shareholder value and profits rather than vainly trying to appease outside activists.”

Winston Churchill once observed that, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Given the choice between Neville Chamberlain’s values and those embraced by Winston Churchill, the question becomes who among our business leaders will have the intestinal fortitude to choose Churchill?