Corporate CSR activities raise the cost of doing business and lower corporate productivity without a net benefit to free enterprise or the human condition, according to an Investor Business Daily article (via CNNMoney).

According to the author, corporate executives that arbitrarily fund CSR activities reduces returns to shareholders – and are in effect spending someone else’s money. Executives should instead spend their own money on CSR activities.

“But billions of corporate dollars are now being diverted from investors and redistributed elsewhere, often according to the whims of social activists who are accountable to no one but themselves, and who pursue goals based not on a desire for greater corporate efficiency or profit but on their own vision of what is sustainable, equitable and good for the rest of us.,” the article states.