---
title: "Corporate Responsibility and Wokenomics | Thomas Taussi | Negotiator 91"
titleOriginal: "Yritysvastuu ja wokenomics | Thomas Taussi | Neuvottelija 91"
episodeNumber: "91"
guest: "Thomas Taussi"
datePublished: 2021-07-23
duration: "49:44"
youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0"
originalLanguage: "fi"
topics: ["leadership_governance","ownership_capital_tax","free_speech_society"]
subtitleMethod: "none"
provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and the publisher's own chapter marks, translated one for one. The marks are genuine: twenty-two of them, with gaps from 71 to over 200 seconds, tracking the recording rather than a grid. No transcript is published here — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. The guest argues one side of a contested question and nobody defending corporate responsibility practice is present; the named cases, including the Finnair controversy and the Google and Apple dismissals, are described from his position and the organisations involved are not represented. The host offers a counter-reading which Taussi accepts as an addition rather than adopting. Recorded 23 July 2021."
fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/103-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi-neuvottelija-91"
canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep91-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi/
---
# Corporate Responsibility and Wokenomics | Thomas Taussi | Negotiator 91

English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript.

## Chapters

- [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=0s) Opening teaser: the limits of responsibility, and the Finnair deportation controversy
- [01:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=101s) Thomas Taussi, and the profit purpose in the Companies Act
- [02:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=172s) Friedman's 1970 essay has been misunderstood
- [04:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=269s) Responsibility as a fashion, and the five foundations of a business
- [06:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=401s) Influence or responsibility: Neste Oil's biofuel strategy
- [08:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=527s) Wahlroos's three-way split: markets, democracy and hierarchy
- [10:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=629s) Transparency in the division of power, and ideological agendas inside an organisation
- [12:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=763s) The UN sustainable development goals, Stora Enso and Kemijärvi
- [16:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=993s) Wokenomics: Google's James Damore, and the Apple case
- [19:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1163s) Responsibility as a cloud of concepts: Finnair and Finnwatch
- [21:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1284s) A chief executive's weak protection, and minimising reputational damage
- [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1373s) Basecamp and Coinbase: the depoliticisation of a company
- [24:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1467s) The chief executive as moral compass in the Trump era
- [26:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1610s) Business leaders as advocates for the EU recovery package
- [28:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1714s) A concept that sets no limits: useful practice or end in itself
- [30:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1849s) ESG standards in a listing, and impact investing
- [33:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=1995s) Cognitive diversity, and the mythical spread of practices
- [36:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=2163s) The EU taxonomy: nuclear, hydro, and the lesson of wind
- [38:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=2297s) Choosing the rapporteurs, and parliamentary transparency
- [40:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=2445s) Costly signalling: the peacock, private jets and diversity departments
- [44:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=2669s) Friedman's paradox: fear of pressure groups, and paying the ransom
- [46:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0&t=2813s) The positive brand of the market economy, and closing words

## Summary

The Aalto University researcher Thomas Taussi argues that Milton Friedman's classic 1970 essay has been widely misread. Friedman did not dispute the importance of stakeholders and did not condemn all corporate social responsibility — he criticised one particular doctrine, in which a company's resources are spent on activities with no purpose of supporting the business. The episode's load-bearing observation is conceptual: responsibility sets itself no limits and does not explain itself, with the consequence that almost anything can be pursued under its cover. Taussi locates the source of his own scepticism precisely — the question is not whether the goals are good, but whether limits can be set at all on things that depart from the core business. The examples include Neste Oil's biofuel turn, Stora Enso's China venture, the Finnair deportation controversy, the Google and Apple dismissals, and Basecamp's depoliticisation.

## A conceptual objection, not a political one

Taussi is careful about where his scepticism sits, and it is worth preserving: he is not arguing that the goals pursued under corporate responsibility are bad. He is arguing that the term sets no boundary on itself, so it cannot distinguish between a good use and a bad one — and a concept that cannot exclude anything is doing no work.

## What Friedman actually wrote

The 1970 essay attacked a specific doctrine: spending the company's resources on activities with no purpose of supporting the business. It did not deny that stakeholders matter. The difference between those two positions is most of the argument that has been conducted in Friedman's name ever since.

## Why the visible measures win

Costly signalling predicts that the measures which are expensive and legible will be preferred to the ones that are cheap and effective, because the point is the signal. It is Veblen's argument and it explains a pattern the episode's own examples display.


## Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Yritysvastuu ja wokenomics | Thomas Taussi | Neuvottelija 91](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPW5_e1ie0).
A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/103-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi-neuvottelija-91).

## In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode:
[English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep91-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep91-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi/).

---

Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Corporate Responsibility and Wokenomics | Thomas Taussi | Negotiator 91, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep91-yritysvastuu-ja-wokenomics-thomas-taussi/, 2021-07-23. For quotes include episode 91 and timestamp.