Testcase W7 v2

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of business corporations in relation to structural injustice and critically assesses the practice of Corporate Social Justice Projects (CSJPs). These projects –such as Starbucks’ Race Together, Meta’s Free Basics, or Ikea Poland’s #WeChangeNarratives – claim to address structural injustices like racism. By building upon and extending on Iris Marion Young’s account of structural injustice, the thesis addresses two questions: How should CSJPs be evaluated from a structural injustice perspective? And how should the role of business corporations in relation to structural injustice be conceived; are corporations appropriately conceived of as “agents of justice”? The thesis argues that CSJPs risk cementing injustice. Rather than merely reproducing unjust corporate structures, they strengthen and entrench them by misrepresenting corporations’ relation to injustice, justifying their existence, and weakening efforts toward corporate reform. This creates additional epistemic and political burdens for those seeking justice. Thus, instead of embracing narratives that depict corporations as justice-promoting agents, the thesis argues we have epistemic and political reasons to understand them as Agents of Injustice. Business Corporations as Agents of Injustice is a form of a political narrative that, by highlighting corporate structural entanglement with oppressive social hierarchies, counters the myth of corporate agency of justice and helps counterbalance the cementing effects of CSJPs. These arguments are developed in three parts. Part I clarifies central concepts, situates the thesis within political philosophy and business ethics and engages with Young-inspired business ethics literature on corporate responsibilities. It presents a novel critique of the business ethics literature by reviewing and problematizing its use of Young’s model of responsibility for structural injustice; and, by doing so, it provides a novel reconstruction of Young’s view on the responsibility of business corporations. Part II offers a structural critique of the business corporation, shifting attention from corporations’ ability to intervene in unjust structures to the injustices related to corporate structures themselves. It examines how core corporate legal features – such as limited liability and shareholder primacy – create systemic power imbalances, and how corporate structures have been shaped by and intertwined with racialized and gendered social hierarchies and dynamics. These insights underscore the need for a critical political theory of the corporation that is attentive to how corporations interact with and sustain oppressive social relations. Part III returns to CSJPs, arguing that they represent a distinctive form of reproducing unjust structures “in the name of justice.” CSJPs generate epistemic, ideological, and political effects that justify corporate power, misrepresent corporations’ relation to injustice, and demobilize efforts toward corporate reform. Chapter seven identifies conditions under which CSJPs risk cementing injustice and outlines possible interventions. The final chapter develops the idea that we should conceive of corporations as Agents of Injustice, articulated through a political narrative that counters the dominant myth of corporate agency of justice.