To answer this, we find it appropriate to make a brief timeline, to understand how the concept has changed from its creation in the mid-20th century to the present in the first twenty years of the 21st century. Specialists in the subject like Bernando Kliksberg tell us that in the last 50 years, there have been three distinguishable stages. (1)
a) The selfish company: This was predominant in the West in past decades, fundamentally of the 20th century. Where the company focused on maximizing profits in the shortest possible time, regardless of its role towards society. Companies were accountable only to their shareholders.
b) The Philanthropic company: In this stage, some donations to very specific spaces emerged, in addition to being accountable to shareholders and actors involved in some part of the production chain.
c) The Present Company: Companies are accountable to the general public, to governments, to subjects operating on social networks, in short, the paradigm with previous visions was broken.
That's why we see that to these three previous stages we must add a new one, product of the modernization in humanity's life that presents the irruption of blockchain technology.
d) Blockchain technology: Corporate Social Responsibility in the social capitalist ethics of the 21st century.
In this fourth stage, we consider that this Corporate Social Responsibility is of utmost importance to be present in all existing projects and ecosystems that may appear, given that if in the White Papers of companies, on their official sites, this figured as a motto of their modus operandi, one could distinguish between projects like Terra Luna, from very good projects like Cardano's. Given that as the project advances, they would be obliged to comply with guidelines and norms of social help, and not only take indiscriminate profit without being accountable to the crypto society, as well as to the different public and private organizations that would request it.
That's why in this fourth stage, companies that handle blockchain and enter Decentralized Finance (DeFi) will have to meet the following basic qualities:
1) Personnel policies that respect their rights and favor their personal economic development.
2) Transparency in their assets, and corporate governance or decentralized voting if it were their initial constitution.
3) Clear rules for Token investors.
4) Care and protection of the environment, as well as the different actors involved in that process.
5) Help to organizations or blockchain projects that help different socio-economic spheres of human society.
6) A unified ethical code globalized for companies, whether from central capitalism countries or peripheral countries.
Why should CSR be present in Decentralized Finance projects?
Already at the beginning of the 21st century, there in 2012, at the Davos forum, where 2700 entrepreneurs, the richest on Planet Earth, had gathered, the founder and director of the Forum Klaus Schwab opened the speeches as follows:
"Capitalism in its current form no longer fits the world. We have not been able to learn from the lessons of the 2009 crisis. A global transformation is urgent and must begin with the application of a new sense of social responsibility"2
a) On the other hand, since 2008 the first mined Bitcoin had been circulating, we see how changes are always structural, although actors from different parts of the system see only the tile they are standing on. Thus we can say that cryptocurrencies (like fungible or non-fungible Tokens) come hand in hand with a shift in the capitalist system, and therefore with the rules of the business world, where there are new ethical game rules, that is, inclusive capitalism as we define it in point d) where we made a timeline about CSR.
"d) Blockchain technology: Corporate Social Responsibility in the social capitalist ethics of the 21st century."
But we are not the only ones who saw this, already in 2011 Mohamed El-Erian who was the president of the leading Investment Fund, called Pimco, declared in the New York Times "The capitalist system has to move towards inclusive capitalism, create more jobs, and cut excessive inequalities... You cannot have a good house in a rapidly deteriorating neighborhood. The credibility and fair functioning of the neighborhood matters a lot. Without that, the integrity of the capitalist system will weaken more and more". How much truth from someone who knew how to do business. That's why, in this new phase of the capitalist system, CSR cannot be missing from the roadmap of different cryptographic projects, we understand from Token Mithrandir. In this case, our project is inserted from a company involved in blockchain technology, therefore we consider that in this finance sector this part of business seriousness cannot be missing, committed to investors who trust the project, as well as committed to the rest of society, who may not even know the Token Mithrandir company.
That's why we consider from Token Mithrandir, that it will be among our plans to help care for the environment, generating value, monetary value and social value, given that we will focus on environmental needs, as well as social ones. We will focus on the needs and challenges of our contemporaries, and based on those premises will be that we will make donations to be able to combine from the Token Mithrandir company business success with the social progress of our historical moment in which we live and negotiate.
The advance of the CSR Idea in Decentralized Finance projects:
There is a case in Ethereum, where there is a project in which if one is unemployed they receive some digital assets from that ecosystem, as compensation, or in Cardano, where there are many implementation projects in the third world ranging from bringing internet to hard-to-reach places, to house construction, and even environmental care, or other species on this Planet like gorillas, dogs, etc. It is not the purpose of this writing to describe all existing projects but just to mention this, so that we see that Token Mithrandir is just one more project among hundreds that have the same philosophy in their White Papers. We opt in Token Mithrandir to have responsible business conduct open daily to financial transparency processes within the laws of capitalism.
From Token Mithrandir, we will conduct monthly technological and financial inclusion days. For example, there will be a week that for each NFT sold from our collection, we will give away another NFT from our collection to some subject who has not operated in the cryptographic world, so that in this way they approach the world of decentralized finance, and have chances to improve their financial quality of life, not only for the value of the NFT, but for the possibility of learning to manage their digital financial assets.
Care of personnel working at Token Mithrandir company:
On this point it is worth clarifying that for us the care of human capital that sustains the company from different work points is very important, whether these people, women or men who voluntarily or as permanent workers are developing different tasks will be essential for us. As the company begins to have significant income, for us it will be a priority to pay more than decent salaries to these people. In terms of Gender, thanks to our professional anthropologist Dominique Gromez we will try to have balanced work between men and women, in the same way, understanding that if on the planet women are approximately half the population,3 they also have to be so in companies, and salaries must be the same between women and men,4 without income distinction for the mere fact of being of one sex or another.
1 - Kliksberg, Bernardo; "Ethics for entrepreneurs - Why companies and countries win with Corporate Social Responsibility", Ethics and Economy Editions, San Martín, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, 2015, page 27.
2 - Kliksberg, Bernardo; "Ethics for entrepreneurs - Why companies and countries win with Corporate Social Responsibility", Ethics and Economy Editions, San Martín, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, 2015, page 23.
3 - Kliksberg, Bernardo; "Ethics for entrepreneurs - Why companies and countries win with Corporate Social Responsibility", Ethics and Economy Editions, San Martín, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, 2015, page 69.
4 - Kliksberg, Bernardo; "Ethics for entrepreneurs - Why companies and countries win with Corporate Social Responsibility", Ethics and Economy Editions, San Martín, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, 2015, page 71.