哈佛把脉美国政治体系

    哈佛商学院教授比尔•乔治指出，今天美国也有一些“企业公民”的表率。比如百事可乐（Pepsi）的CEO卢英德一直致力于推动百事的健康食品，而且至少在表面上致力于控制美国日益失控的医疗成本。另外乔治还点名表扬了联合利华（Unilever）的CEO保罗•波罗曼，因为波尔曼采取了若干举措，以减少联合利华对环境的破坏。另外乔治还向可口可乐（Coca-Cola）的CEO穆泰康表示了敬意，因为他成功地减少了公司的水资源使用量，而且一直在为解决水资源短缺问题奔走呼吁。

    波特在上周四发言说：“（作为企业领袖，）让我们在职权范围内，尽我们的所能。如果我们这样做了，那么至少在某些层面上，我们可以改变这个世界。”

    那政客们又如何呢？乔治认为，华盛顿至少在2017年前不会出台什么有价值的政策。这并不是说政府就无力回天了，只是这并不是哈佛商学院研究的课题。尽管哈佛商学院也给白宫开出了很多政治药方，但诺利亚称，哈佛商学院没有任何兴趣跳进政治争论的圈子。他表示，哈佛的目标是长期的，短期内不会对政客进行游说。

    当然，从某些方面看，这也很可惜。哈佛商学院给出的提议之所以高明，有部分原因是由于它不像某些大企业经常抛出的游说议案那样只是狭隘地关注某些事情。美国劳工总会与产业劳工组织的政策主任兼特别顾问达蒙•西弗斯表示，支持他的选民也可以支持哈佛商学院的一些商业观点。如果劳工和业界可以向这些观点施加相当的影响力的话——尤其是对税务改革等问题施加影响力，那么美国的政治进程或许会有更多希望。不过就目前来说，我们还是祈祷即将到来的债务限额谈判能够取得比上次更好的结果吧。

    译者：朴成奎

    There are a few shining examples of corporate citizenry out there today, says Harvard Business School Professor Bill George. He cited Indra Nooyi of Pepsi (PEP) and her push to improve the company's healthy food offerings and, ostensibly, rein in the country's out-of-control healthcare costs. He name-checked Unilever (UL) CEO Paul Polman, who has taken steps to reduce the consumer product giant's environmental footprint. And George also tipped his hat to Coca-Cola (KO) CEO Muhtar Kent, who has scaled back his company's water usage and called for solutions to water shortages.

    "[As business leaders,] let's all do everything that's under our control," Porter said on Thursday. "If we do that, we can, on at least some level, change the world."

    As for politics? George believes not much that's worthwhile will come out of Washington until at least 2017. It's not that government is a lost cause, it's just not Harvard's cause. Despite its list of policy prescriptions, Nohria says HBS has zero interest in jumping into the political fray. Harvard's goals are long-term, he says, and it won't be lobbying politicians any time soon.

    And, in some ways, that's a shame. Part of the beauty of Harvard's prescriptions are that they don't resemble the typical, narrowly focused lobbying agenda the country is used to seeing from big business. AFL-CIO's director of policy and special counsel Damon Silvers said that his constituency could get behind some of the HBS business-centric positions. If business and labor could throw their considerable clout behind these ideas -- especially things like tax reform -- there might be more hope for the political process. For now, though, we'll just have to hope the coming debt ceiling negotiation goes better than the last one.