Revisiting the Friedman Doctrine

Note: this piece is for my colleagues, Economics of Mutuality Practitioners, all, at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, UK.

——————

About five years ago, I and my good friend, Founding Dean Emeritus Shyam Kamath of Cal State University Monterey Bay, College of Business, wrote a piece called "What is Responsible Business." In it, we vilified U.S. Economist Milton Friedman for articulating in a 1970 essay in the New York Times the permission for corporations to focus on purely on profit as its only social responsibility.

While I've held up the Friedman Doctrine numerous times in contrast to Stakeholder Capitalism, I often thought, "The guy is not around to defend himself. What would he say if he were still alive and writing, in today's economy?"

——————