Hard headed corporations

In the absence of a stringent regulatory environment, the corporate profit motive is simply not conducive to providing “childcare” in which the welfare of the children is regarded as paramount. The guiding principle behind how we look after some of our most vulnerable and important citizens should not be how much money can be made out of the process.

Whether or not a child is likely to be noticed weeping, getting injured or missing out on vital early-years stimulation, should not be determined by profit ratios; but that is inevitably what happens when big business controls childcare.

There are some areas of human life that should not be trusted to the market or to corporations seeking to optimise returns. Our children should not be defined as commercial units in someone else’s corporate growth plan.

Governments and citizens that are concerned with redressing broader problems must look to the rules of the game, rather than expecting business players to behave in ways that curtail profits. We can punish the Plainviews and celebrate the philanthropists, but neither kind of behaviour alters the fundamental nature of the system. Corporations are there to make money and they will act to meet their own ends in the pursuit of profit.

If we want corporations to abide by certain ethical positions or to act in ways that enhance specific social objectives, then the answer lies in appropriate regulation rather than deregulation and market-freedom. Then again, we can also decide as a society that the business of making money should not be confused with other profoundly important areas of our human existence.