the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits ; milton friedman

Question 1

why can ‘business’ not have responsibilites?

Answer 1

only people have responsibilities, a corporation is an artificial person and may have artificial responsibilities at most.

Question 2

what does it mean to say the corporate executive has a ‘social responsibility’ in his capacity as a businessman?

Answer 2

that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers; refraining from increasing prices, spending too much money on preventing pollution, etc.

Question 3

whose money are you spending in these cases?
- actions in accordance with social responsibility -
- actions in accordance with raising profits -

Answer 3

–> spending stockholders’ money
–> spending customers’ / employees’ money

Question 4

what two political questions does this raise?

Answer 4

1. political principle. the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental functions. We have established elaborate constitutional, parliamentary, and judicial provisions to control these functions. But the businessman - self-selected or appointed - is to be simultaneously legislator, executive, and jurist, having to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose.
2. political consequences. can the corporate executive in fact discharge alleged ‘social responsibilities’? Suppose he could get away with spending the stockholders’ / customers’ / employees’ money. How is he to know how to spend it? Will the stockholders not fire him? His customers and employees can desert him for other products and employers.

Question 5

conformity =

Answer 5

The individual must serve a more general social interest. He may have a vote and say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform.