Essay by Kellye Y. Testy
In Linking Progressive Corporate Law with Progressive Social Movements, Professor Testy critically assesses what has been termed a “new” corporate social responsibility project. After noting the hegemony of shareholder primacy in corporate law, she critiques four major counter-hegemonic discourses: team production theory, corporate social accountability, stakeholder theory, and corporate social responsibility (or progressive corporate law). Finding the first three ineffective foils for the problems of corporate power that have spurred calls for reform, she turns to an examination of the progressive corporate law project. That project, presently poised at a defining juncture as it attempts to use the “master's tools” to “dismantle the master's house,” nonetheless holds promise for the “piecemeal, but cumulative change” that will be necessary to assure that corporations enhance human flourishing rather than retard it. In order to realize its progressive potential, Testy suggests that the movement bolster itself through more explicit attention to the project's normative goals, which can and should open the door to increased influence through strategic linkages with other progressive social movements.
About the Author
Kellye Y. Testy. Wismer Professor and Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University.
Citation
76 Tul. L. Rev. 1227 (2002)