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Milton Friedman Summary

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Milton Friedman was an American economist who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. During his career, he spent time teaching in University of Minnesota and University of Chicago. In 1970 Friedman wrote an article in The New York Times Magazine, where he said he believes the only social responsibility of a business is to increase its profits. In this essay I hope to give my opinion on this issue and discuss examples we can see today in the IT industry. Social responsibility or corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of corporate self-regulation that is integrated into a business model. The CSR policy …show more content…

The CEO has a direct responsibility to his or her employers. That responsi¬bility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while con¬forming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Friedman is very clear in his belief that if a CEO has a “social responsibility”, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. He uses an example of not increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price increase would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or hiring long-term un-employed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty. In these cases the CEO would be spending someone else’s money for general social …show more content…

Today, the majority of large companies issue a corporate social responsibility report while ten years ago very few did. Also, more than 8,000 businesses around the world have signed the UN Global Compact pledging to show good global citizenship in the areas of human rights, labour standards and environmental protection. One such example of a company is Walmart. Traditionally, they were not a very socially responsible company. They paid their employees poor wages and had a very high employee turnover rate even though their owners are listed as some of the wealthiest people in America. However, they have now made commitments to sustainability as a way to save money and tighten their supply chain. They hope to be fully supplied by renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that sustain people and the environment. They are also making attempts to improve their employee relations. This year they have raised wages to compete with rival companies and have also raised the temperatures in their stores in colder areas of America. This will make it a more comfortable work environment for Walmart

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“Daddy is thinking of taking a loan from Mr. Roosevelt and his men…” from the poem “Debts” by Karen Hesse. During the Great Depression people suffered hard. Most people had to give up house payments, had fifteen or more jobs, and gave up on using necessities like toilet paper. In the Great Depression everyone was poor and were forced to give up most items in their household or find substitutions for the products.

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Edwin Meese III held quite a different view as compared to that of William Brennan. Meese held the opinion of strictly following exactly what is stated in the Constitution of the United States, otherwise known as fidelity. In his essay he focuses on fidelity often. Edwin Meese portrays his belief in his essay as he quoted Justice Joseph Story, “The First and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all instruments is, to construe them according to the sense of the terms, and the intention of the parties.” (Meese).

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In one of the healthcare summits, when asked what he’d do differently if he could go back in time prior rising price, he said that he would put the price, even more, higher to make more profits for shareholders. But is CEO responsibility truly to increase profits? What about social responsibility especially in a healthcare industry?

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In the article “Created Equal,” Milton Friedman argues that other people have advantages over others and that “life is not fair” but he also explains how we also benefitted from the unfairness we disapprove of. He goes in greater detail how an elite fighter such as Muhammad Ali makes millions of dollars every time he fights and steps into a ring, but people that work “normal” jobs don’t get the same amount of pay. Muhammad Ali trained and practiced his entire life to get to the status he was in, but not everyone can devote or is willing to devote their entire life and time into fighting. Friedman also considered how luck and chance plays a role and the way we make decisions, he said that people with an equal amount of chips can be big winners or big losers depending on the cards that they get by chance and how they decide to play the cards they get. Friedman also argues how people the people that make their own choices run bearing the risk and consequences of their decision.

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Milton Friedman revolutionized free market thinking. He believed in a free market as the best solution for the stability of an economy. Basing his theories on Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, Friedman further developed Smith’s theory. In short, Friedman’s Neoliberalism can be described through one of his quotes on the social responsibility of business, “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” (Cooney, 2012). Friedman’s belief of the market’s perfection is based on the assumption that no actor would agree to a transaction if they did not find it fitting for themselves (Friedman, 1975).

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Due to the fact that there are more customers, there must be more employees. However, Walmart does not offer their employees a health care policy like other companies do, the workers are usually force to use public assistance in order to take their job. As how it is stated, Walmart does have an awful health care policy. As records shows, since Walmart is so convenient, everyone goes there to buy all the groceries, it made a lot of small businesses to shut down. In the economy, Walmart takes over a large amount of customers who wants to buy products due to their low price.

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In today’s modern society technology plays a huge role in everyday life. Technology has a big position in education. Today students use laptops for school on an everyday basis to take notes, work on assignments, and research. Many people agree that, when it comes to education, technology can either be very harmful or very helpful. Timothy D. Snyder, a history professor at the University of Yale has written five award-winning books.

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The economic philosopher I believe has the most positive effect on the United States economy today is Milton Friedman. He helped start the Chicago School of Economics, and he also agreed with other economic philosopher, Adam Smith, that markets should be mostly free, but have some parameters maintained by the government. He disagreed with John Maynard Keynes and believed that inflation could be avoided by controlling the money supply. Inflation is a general increase in prices. He was also in favor of floating exchange in rates for the international markets, a negative income tax, and school vouchers.

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The article “Labouring the Walmart Way,” author Deenu Parmar talks about how Walmart is able to achieve selling goods at a lower price then any average superstore. The author goes on to explain that Walmart’s antiunion efforts, employee selection, low prices and high retention rate all contribute to their major success. Walmart’s stance on ant unionism allows them to keep wage cost down and keep all their profits up. Not allowing a union keeps Walmart with the power to keep low wages and force unpaid overtime.

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Davis (as cited by Khalidah, Zulkufly, & Lau, 2014) defined Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as “… the firm’s consideration of, and response to, issues beyond the narrow economic, technical, and legal requirements of the firm. It is the firm’s obligation to evaluate in its decision-making processes the effects of its decisions on the external social system in a manner that will accomplish social benefits along with the traditional economic gains, which the firm seeks. It means that social responsibility begins where the law ends. A firm is not being socially responsible if it merely complies with the minimum requirements of the law, because this is what any good citizen would do.” A firm will not survive without the support of both the stakeholders and shareholders, thus the CSR proposes the indication which stats that a firm can never exist In a vacuum (Khalidah et.

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) relates to the actions of an organization and the effects on the environment and social wellbeing. It is about the way that the company assesses its actions and takes responsibility for this. (Investopedia, n.d.) CSR is a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental issues in their business operations and interactions with stakeholders . The company aims to achieve a balance of economic, environmental and social objectives, while also listening to the needs of stakeholders.

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Some of the current ethical issues that Walmart is facing are the treatment of its employees, the methods it employs to obtain retail goods at low prices, the sustainability of its products, and the use of bribery to further corporate interests (Ferrell

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) relates to the actions of an organization and the effects on the environment and social wellbeing. It is about the way that the company assesses its actions and takes responsibility for this. (Investopedia, n.d.) CSR is a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental issues in their business operations and interactions with stakeholders. The company aims to achieve a balance of economic, environmental and social objectives, while also listening to the needs of stakeholders.

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Corporate social responsibility means that businesses have wider responsibilities than simply to their shareholders – they also have responsibilities towards other stakeholders, as well as the environment. Scholars such as Robert Solomon believe that businesses should take on these responsibilities, as they have a duty to behave ethically. Solomon believed that a person should follow their own personal values and attempt to stay ethical no matter whether they are at home or at work. Others, such as Milton Friedman and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, argue against the idea of corporate social responsibility, believing that the only responsibility of a business is to increase its profits for its shareholders. Friedman went on to argue that for a business to take money from their profits to fund corporate social responsibility projects is equivalent to stealing money from shareholders and is therefore unethical.

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Thomas Friedman has mistaken some of my generation’s ignorance as my entire generation. Friedman says he’s shocked that we are less radical and politically engaged than we need to be but more optimistic and idealistic than we should be. He thinks that all we do is party and not give a damn about the world we live in. Friedman also says that we don’t care about worldly issues and are too online and too quiet for our own good. I disagree with Friedman’s statement about my generation because we do care about political and worldly issues, maybe just not in the way his generation did.

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