Milton Friedman Summary

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.”

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

Subsequently, Denning may have misinterpreted Friedman’s main argument. The actual title of Friedman's article is "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits". Denning hastily substituted the word "sole" for "social" and misinterpreted Friedman’s argument to be that that the sole purpose of the firm is to make money for shareholders. This is not true. The main issue Friedman was tackling was the social responsibility of business; the responsibility that it has to the society. In fact, the word “sole” was not mentioned even once in the

The first source is a quote by Milton Friedman that criticizes the view of corporate officials needing to abide to a “social responsibility”. He claims that, in a free market economy, corporate officials only have one goal, to increase profits for their business. So long as it's done without deception, fraud and engages an open and free competition. It is obvious that Martian Friedman is a supporter of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state or province. It is a right-wing ideology built on the foundation of individualism. It encourages freedom of action for individuals over government control. The source presents Milton is a supporter of individualism and classical liberalism. He favors an economy focused on making profits for the individual with little to no government intervention. Ideologies that

According to Milton Friedman, all of the following are reasons not to use corporate funds to serve social causes EXCEPT:

"Home movies are about innocence--our lost fuzzy, glowing personal pasts, all horseplay, and funny hats and the promise of youth" (Cooper, 23). Andrew Jarecki's remarkable film, Capturing the Friedmans captured just what is clearly a case study of extreme family dysfunction through such home videos. At first Andrew Jarecki just wanted to do a nice little documentary about clowns. He decided to try film making and thought he would cut his teeth on something easy like birthday party clowns. He had met David Friedman a top childrens birthday party clown from Manhattan, New York. Much to his surprise David

Milton Friedman’s ideas where thought to be radical, but he was the most authoritative figure in the economics field in the 20th century, (Placeholder2) and was known most for his thoughts on free enterprise, classical liberalism and limited government. (Placeholder3) His views shaped modern capitalism. (Placeholder2) He was against government intervention and favored free markets (Placeholder6).

Milton Friedman has been credited with many different achievements, including being one of the most effective advocates of economic freedoms and free enterprise, being the greatest economist to ever walk the face of the earth, and proving every single word that Lord Maynard Keynes ever said to be wrong. Why these may or may not all be true, it is obvious that Friedman was a brilliant man of many accomplishments.

a. Milton Friedman’s philosophy of corporate responsibility is that “social matters are not the concern of business people and that these problems should be resolved by the unfettered workings of the free market system”. As harsh as it may sound, what he mean course to say was that a business has “to make as much money as possible while conforming to basic rules of society”. Meanwhile, Archie Carroll’s philosophy states that a business has “four kinds of social responsibilities” that a firm must address in their corporate social responsibility, which are economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic duties. Clearly they have two very different views. Friedman sees that a business’s ultimate goal is to generate profits, then comes the legal and ethical responsibilities it must fulfill. To Friedman, there is no need to be philanthropic because the firm’s job is only to make money for the economy, and it is the economy’s obligation to be philanthropic with the profits. Carroll agrees with Friedman that a company must be profitable, then be legal by obeying the law, and be ethical to avoid harm. However, Carroll believes it is also desired and in the best interests of the company to be philanthropic because it will “create a good corporate citizen”. Friedman has an economic view whereas Carroll has a social view. In my opinion, Archie Carroll’s philosophy on corporate social responsibility is more accurate. The social pyramid model he made to go with his views makes

According to Cosans (2009 pp. 391-399) with the taking of limited liability (restricted responsibility) Friedman must have taken the business in a way to be socially affiliated and well-established as well which also leads and supports the ethical and logical roots of CSR and for the re-establishment of the reliability to

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

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