PEOPLE MILTON FRIEDMAN, MARK S. SCHWARTZ AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Both Friedman and Schwartz are well-known for their research in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), but with opposing views. In fact, while Friedman claims that the main obligation of a business is to make a profit whilst conforming to the law and some ethical obligations, Schwartz affirms that companies should have additional ethical and maybe even philanthropic or charitable obligations as well. 1 Use the following notes to prepare an oral presentation. 2 Read the text and decide if the statements are true or false. Correct the false ones. M. Friedman, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits The New York Times Magazine, 13th September 1970 What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities? Only people have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and, in this sense, it may have artificial responsibilities, but “business” as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom. Presumably, the individuals who are to be responsible are businessmen, which means individual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows I shall mostly neglect the individual proprietors and speak of corporate executives. In a free-enterprise, private-property system, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Adapted from: http://websites.umich.edu/~thecore/doc/Friedman.pdf Friedman examines the meaning of business responsibilities. T ☐ F ☐ A corporation is not a physical person and so it does not have any responsibilities. T ☐ F ☐ Both owners and executives are businessmen. T ☐ F ☐ An executive is different from an employee. T ☐ F ☐ The responsibility of an executive is to make money whilst respecting the basic rules of society. T ☐ F ☐ The rules of society include both legal obligations and ethical customs. T ☐ F ☐