Skip to content

Milton Friedman on Voluntary exchange

There are no “social” values, no “social” responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.
A Friedman Doctrine—The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
Column, 1970, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, Section SM, p. 17
Checked against the sourceRead the transcriptCite this passage

Where this comes from

Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.

Topics

He also said

  1. That is why, in my book “Capitalism and Freedom,” I have called it a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, “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, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”
    A Friedman Doctrine—The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
    Column, 1970, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, Section SM, p. 17
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript
  2. Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine. If businessmen do have a social responsibility other than making maximum profits for stockholders, how are they to know what it is? Can self-selected private individuals decide what the social interest is? Can they decide how great a burden they are justified in placing on themselves or their stockholders to serve that social interest?
    Capitalism and Freedom
    Book, 1962, Ch. 8 Monopoly and the Social Responsibility of Business and Labor, p. 133
    Not yet checked
  3. What does it mean to say that “business” has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but “business” as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense.
    A Friedman Doctrine—The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
    Column, 1970, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, Section SM, p. 17
    Checked against the sourceRead the transcript

Think this quote is wrong, misattributed, or missing context?Report it and it gets fixed, not argued with.