Rating America's Corporate Conscience: A Provocative Guide to the Companies Behind the Products You Buy Every Day

This is billed as a guide for consumers that rates corporations by various political, social and economic criteria. Among the issues: corporate contributions to PACs (divided by party) and their records on ""social disclosure''; military contracts (divided into conventional and nuclear categories); and so forth. Some 130 companies are evaluated by industry and discussed in short chapters, then rated on easy-to-read charts. Among oil companies, for example, the authors prefer Amoco and ARCO, giving ARCO a slight edge because it has two women on the board as opposed to Amoco's lack of representation, and ARCO makes more charitable contributions than Amoco. In other categories the two companies rate the same: each has one minority board member, neither is involved in South Africa, neither has nuclear weapons-related contracts. This is a thorough, informative look at corporate responsibility but must be accompanied by product guides a la Consumer Reports so that readers can make a full judgment on purchases. ARCO and Amoco may have a social conscience, but do they also have good deals at the pumps? (February)