Society Has Become More Unequal Since Milton Friedman's Day - The New York Times - 0 views
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Fifty years ago, the economist Milton Friedman warned in his seminal essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” that corporate executives would undermine the “basis of a free society” if they acted as if “business has a ‘social conscience’ and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the watchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers.”
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Instead of operating in a manner that treated all stakeholders fairly, Mr. Friedman argued, every corporation should seek solely to “increase its profits within the rules of the game.”
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Not only that, Mr. Friedman sought to weaken the rules of the game by opposing basic civil rights legislation, unions, the minimum wage and other measures that protected workers, Black people, and the environment.
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