In September 1970 Milton Friedman published an articlein The New York Times Magazine, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.” Friedman, who has received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, is probably the most influential economist of the second half of the twentieth century. His views have become the mainstream economic thinking, although few economists today care to state them as boldly as Friedman.
In my recent book UltrasocietyI use the examples of fictional Gordon Gekko (a character in the movie Wall Street) and all-too-real Jeff Skilling (the CEO of Enron) to explain why this view is wrong. Yet I have wondered on occasion, do economists really believe that “the world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests” (to use another Milton Friedman quote) and that businessmen should be motivated solely by self-interest unadulterated by any feelings of sympathy or morality?...Evonomics
What Is the Role of Morality in a Capitalist Economy?
Peter Turchin | Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Research Associate in the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, Vice-President of the Evolution Institute, and blogger at Cliodynamica — A Blog about the Evolution of Civilizations
See also
The CEO of Sears Fails His Company by Believing in Ayn Rand and the Invisible Hand
See also
The CEO of Sears Fails His Company by Believing in Ayn Rand and the Invisible Hand
Jonathan Haidt | Thomas Cooley professor of ethical leadership at the NYU-Stern School of Business
3 comments:
and that businessmen should be motivated solely by self-interest unadulterated by any feelings of sympathy or morality?...
He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice,
to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God? MICAH 6:8 [bold added]
Yes, we are commanded to love kindness but before that we are commanded to do justice, whether we like it or not.
So what is just about government privileges for banks, credit unions, etc. since these render their liabilities toward the non-bank private sector largely a sham?
From the article: “I am sympathetic to the view that personal morality exists only outside economics or capitalism. I might like the guys who are nice and ethical, but when it comes to economics, I really do not expect them to be so. I even very much doubt when they claim they are. I tend to see them as hypocritical.”
This view is sociopathic. Capitalism without morality is a virus. A cancer. A plague.
There are two ways to seek a “profit”…
A: The morally wrong way, which is to seek wealth and power at the expense of others
B: The morally right way, which is to seek wealth and power for everyone.
From the dawn of civilization there have always been people who sought ‘A’ while pretending to seek ‘B.’
Their heroes are people like Milton Friedman and Alisa Rosenbaum (aka Ayn Rand).
Mutually exclusive ideas. Capitalism is the antithesis of morality.
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