Abstract

The article presents a brief case history of the introduction and promotion of a relatively new class of products generally called cellular or foamed plastics. The problems that this case history illuminates do not involve the responsibility, if any, of corporations for such social and community problems as racial discrimination, racial and technological unemployment, teeming ghettos, inadequate and unequal educational opportunities and the like, much as these can affect the long-range interests of corporate citizens in a flourishing and healthy society. Instead, it deals with the responsibility of the corporation for the public welfare as the public is affected by production, promotion, and sale of the products that the corporation has developed on its own initiative for the express purpose of furthering its business and in the hope of adding to its profitability. An integral part of the discussion concerns the responsibility and power of government to protect the public where such products pose special hazards to their users that cannot be easily detected or guarded against.