It was nearly enough to have a gathering of Dublin's business elite choking on their complimentary chocolates. George Bush, they were told, is a proxy for Corporate America. Walmart and its ilk are, if not the root of all evil, then certainly of a hearty slice of it.

Were it not for that fact that you were surrounded by cautious looking men in grey suits you could might have concluded you'd blundered upon an anti-globalisation rally, at the Four Seasons Hotel, Dublin yesterday.

And in a sense you had as Dame Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, the chain as famous for it radical stance on issues such as cosmetic testing on animals as for its products, gave her anti-establishment pitch to the Institute of Directors.

Urging assembled business leaders to embrace - or at least hug quite tightly - the politics of "grass roots activism" Dame Anita, who began the Body Shop between two funeral parlours in Brighton 28 years ago, announced the best entrepreneurs were "crazy people" with no interest in accumulating wealth, who were "useless" with money and couldn't bear hierarchies.

Some of her suggestions were less fire-brand. Communication, she told the institute luncheon, was the most essential tool a business can possess. The Body Shop became a global success not because of the strength of its products but because of its genius at transmitting its message and values, she said.

"We took the brilliance of our marketing ability and put it into social causes. We tried to put activism in the the work place."

Managers, she said, have become "global citizens". Their decisions had not only economic but deeply-resonating social consequences. Their business are "more powerful than the church" and have an essential role as architects of social responsibility.