MGMT331 – Business Ethics
Essay Topic One
Fanzi (Megan) Wang
3937181
The market place is full of chances and eliminations, every business organisations have chances to get themselves a place in the market but few can hold their seats till last minute, the saying ‘survival of the strongest’ perfectly describes the severe situation. In this battle, the term ‘strongest’ often refer to those businesses which can make more profit so they could have higher chances to remain competitive and more easily to extend their life span in the market. Hence, more and more businesses seek to make as much profit as they can to increase their probability of winning the battle. Profit making then seem to be the central of the universe that businesses focus merely on it and nothing else is to be done. Social responsibility is always the major missing out aspect for businesses. However, the famous economist Milton Friedman argues that the only social responsibility that business people have is to maximise profits for stockholders of their companies, in other words, Friedman believes that businesses have only one kind of social responsibility that is to serve the interest of their stockholders. Is Friedman’s idea true? This essay is first going to explain Friedman’s theory and state some of his arguments, and then critically evaluate his arguments by discuss some of the social responsibilities that businesses have from both external and internal, and critically analyze why these social responsibilities are to be taken by businesses, and finally, writer’s own opinion will be given.
Milton Friedman argues “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 sta ...