Future regulators of corporations will look less like bureaucrats and more like your next-door neighbors. That's the surprising scenario set out by Steven Lydenberg, chief investment officer of Domini Social Investments, in a new book "Corporations and the Public Interest" (Berrett-Koehler). Here are edited excerpts of his conversation with the Monitor's Laurent Belsie:
President Bush is likely to get another conservative judge on the Supreme Court. If the court shifts to the right, will corporations rethink some of their more liberal policies, such as same-sex partner benefits?
Lydenberg: If you're a company like Hewlett-Packard - which has had a deep commitment to employees over the years - you recognize that your investment is not in factories, not in capital-intensive equipment, but in your own employees. And if you want to attract and retain those employees, you have to invest in those employees and compete for those employees. So policies like same-sex domestic partner benefits are something that you will use because the marketplace is forcing you to do those, rather than whatever particular political climate there may be at the moment.
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