The Social Responsibilities of Business

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Milton Friedman's views on the social responsibilities of businesses. The paper presents Friedman's views that a business' social responsibility consists of its adherence to the goals of good business practice - it must generate profits in an ethical manner and be responsible to its stockholders and that anything less than this is a perversion of the capitalist system.

From the Paper:

"Rules with very similar effects to those produced by monopolies are a frequent target of Friedman's arguments. Excessive government regulation and interference is detrimental to the smooth operation of the free market and amounts to authoritarian control. In most cases, Friedman would insist, businesses are able to regulate themselves. The market produces its own laws, laws that reflect the customs of the sum total of individual consumers. It is these consumers that constitute "society." Friedman reckons strict government control an even more pernicious development than private monopoly."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Entine, Jon. "Chapter 3 Shell, Greenpeace and Brent Spar." Case Histories in Business Ethics. Ed. Chris Megone and Simon J. Robinson. London: Routledge, 2002.
• Friedman, Milton. Price Theory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1976.
• Friedman, Milton, and Rose Friedman. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
• Knight, Frank Hyneman, and Milton Friedman. The Ethics of Competition, and Other Essays. New York: Augustus M. Kelley Inc., 1951.
• Ostas, Daniel T. "Cooperate, Comply or Evade? A Corporate Executive's Social Responsibilities with Regard to Law." American Business Law Journal 41.4 (2004): 559+.

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