An Executive Summary - the Social Responsibility of Business to Increase Its Profit
Respond to the position made by Milton Freedman on corporate social responsibility at this site (if this does not connect directly please copy and past on a separate web page on the URL line): http://www.ethicsinbusiness.net/case-studies/the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to-increase-its-profits/ Do you agree or disagree with Friedman's position? Why? What is most positive about his position? What is most negative about his position? This was written in 1970, does it apply in today's global/high tech economy? Why or why not?
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
* An Executive Summary – The Social Responsibility of Business it to Increase its Profits
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits by Milton Friedman
The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company.
When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system,” I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.
The discussions of the “social responsibilities of business” are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that “business” has
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
* An Executive Summary – The Social Responsibility of Business it to Increase its Profits
The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits by Milton Friedman
The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company.
When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system,” I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.
The discussions of the “social responsibilities of business” are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that “business” has