Comparing the Ethical Perspectives of Friedman, Drucker, and Murphy

Milton Friedman’s shareholder theory of management says that the purpose of a business is to make money for the owner or the stockholders of the business. Friedman says that there is only one social responsibility for the business: to use its resources in order to increase

First thing let us start with a little overview of what Milton Friedman exposed in his article. It seems that the whole point of his essay revolves around one basic statement which clearly says that the only social responsibility of business is to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long it stays within the rules of the game (Milton Friedman, the social responsibility of business is to increase profit).

What Friedman implies is that shareholders should only be concerned with maximizing profits and not be obligated to be “socially responsible.” In that case, the manager would only have one priority, to maximize profits. However, what if that manager determined that social endeavors is the best option to maximize profits? This would make the corporation socially responsible while still maintaining maximum profits. The argument presented by Friedman in this case is that while the manager is performing as expected by maximizing profits, this type of “social responsibility is frequently a cloak for actions that are justified on other grounds rather than a reason for those actions.”

This essay will analyse the strengths, limitations and challenges of ethical and socially responsible business practice. The purpose of this essay is to identify the advantages and limitations of following business ethics and act socially responsible in business operations. In order to help me analyse those further I will use the case study from food industry - McDonald’s corporation.

The ethical issues presented in this case are the different views that each individual has on how the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This dispute is between Mr. Milton Friedman, John Mackey, and T.J. Rodgers; all of which has a different outlook on CSR. The definition of CSR refers to the responsibilities that business has to the society in which it operates and to those actions that a business can be held accountable. Most philosophers have come up with three different types of responsibilities that corporations can be held accountable for. The first and most important of the three is a corporation’s duty to not cause harm. If a corporation can

In this essay I have chosen to compare two opposing theories, Immanuel Kant 's absolutist deontological ethics and Joseph Fletchers relativist situation ethics. The deontological ethics focuses on actions made according to duty and the categorical imperative - which shows how acts are intrinsically good or bad. The situation ethics state that no act is intrinsically good or bad, and that actions should b made according to love. From this perspective it looks as thought Kant 's views were less personal than Fletcher 's, although in actuality both focus on the best outcome for humans.

My argument is that Friedman is not correct. Friedman’s description of the business process of undemocratic is agreeable. However, the corporate executive must be fully qualified to an confident in spending the stockholders or customers or employees money and must in fact know how to spend it. This is in total contradiction to one of Friedman’s essential claims. The corporate executive who accomplishes social responsibility outcomes with the limited time, funds, and effort allocated to him / her is doubtedly providing forward the profitability, awareness, and value of the brands which him / her represents. Customers express value in their purchases. Any causal reading will clearly indicate the value both the American and global customers place

As a graphic designer, I must work for clients whose beliefs may not line up with my own. I am jobless, in debt and am offered a position at the White House. The job I am offered is to sell the Trump Health Care plan through pamphlets, websites, and social media memes. This position would mean that I would have inside information on the White House plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). The Congressional Budget Office reports that 14 million Americans will lose their health insurance in the first year. An additional 10 million people will lose their health insurance over the next 10 years. When I raise this concern with my boss, I am told to “shut up and do my job.” My job is to emphasize the 337-billion-dollar deficit

In contrast with Galbraith, Milton Friedman never appreciated the limitations of the market, he was a forceful critic of government. He takes as a starting point Adam Smith’s skepticism, but he is much more toward the relationship between morality and capitalism. He launched a point of view which later generated controversy. He asserts that only people have responsibility. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibility, but business as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities. The only responsibility of companies is to get involved in economic activities designed to make profit, any expense incurred for social and moral reason affecting this fundamental goal, such as any extra expense to support some communities or to protect and restore the environment, will result in decreasing the profitability and, in the end, everyone will have something to lose. The member of a corporation, their position such as a stakeholder can undertake moral responsibilities, but as individual, not as representatives of the corporation. According to Friedman, there must not be any connection between business and ethic is that a corporation is a legal entity, not a person, and morality is a distinct attribute, belonging to human being. Thus, he stated that moral criteria have no place in the economy, especially in capitalism; economy and business are in the horizon of amorality and it is there that they should remain. To me, I do not completely

Milton Friedman wrote in his famous 1970’s article in The New York Times Magazine, that “the one and only social responsibility of business, is to increase profits for shareholders.” Milton Friedman's view on business responsibility accentuates the importance of maximizing firm's value. He pointed that the “there is one and only one social responsibility of business –to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engaged in open and free completion without deception or fraud’’ and by taking on the burden of social cost, the business becomes less efficient (Milton Friedman, 1962).

Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician and writer, who had a massive impact on the research agenda of the economics profession. His famous words “the only responsibility of business is to increase its profits” (Friedman, Milton. 1970) led to many controversial debates on whether businesses should have ethics or if profit should be their main goal. Corporate social responsibility has many definitions, as its interpretation is quite loose, so I have chosen one that relates the most to this essay, given by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, in 2000: “Corporate social

The next two articles that were compared and contrasted were Peter Drucker’s 1981 article on What Is Business Ethics? and Milton Friedman’s 1970 article on The Social Responsibility of Business Is To Increase Its Profits. Drucker linked business ethics as a monitoring tool that called out businesses who received special ethical treatments. He noted that what we refer to as ethics should be called ethical chic. This turned out to be highly debated statement of that period. Drucker’s statement did not seem to be related to the core principles of what ethics was established for. Drucker’s main claim was that business ethics elevates businesses to a higher level than that of regular citizens. He

For a long time now, there has been much debate over the social responsibility of a business. Friedman is one of the most influential

There are several problems that can we seen in business ethics. “Discussions of the role of the corporation in society and the very purpose of a corporation as a social institution are examples. It is not disputed that the purpose of a for-profit corporation is to make a profit for stockholder, but there has been an intense debate about whether maximizing stockholder profits is the sole legitimate purpose of corporations” as Milton Friedman and other have argued and whether beneficent corporate conduct is justifiable. This question is normative, but there is also the question of moral psychology raised by Smith: “Does beneficence have any place in the world of business?” An example is found in public utilities’ program to help customers pay for electricity, gas, oil, phone service, and the like. This attitude not only won’t increase the company profits but reduce. In fact, this is a corporate form of charity. The money is taken directly

Companies with extensive responsibilities even argue about the system in pursuing social responsibility of business. According to Ulrich Steger, the company should prioritize the shareholders’ incessant interest but they should also be concerned of their social responsibilities, morals and environmental goals that the public expects them to be. Without a doubt, companies’ primary goal is to earn a profit. Emphasizing on profitability affects the fundamental values in the company, its morality. Companies ignore the ethics just to earn a mountainous income. This often causes extensive repercussions in the companies.