Essays on Milton Friedman

Social Responsibility of Business

Introduction The belief advanced by Milton Friedman connotes that the directors of a business must engage in business actions that bring only profits to the given business shareholders. In reference to notions of business ethics, the executive management of a business corporation must earn profits for the business owners within the rules of the game. Further, about corporate social responsibility, the business management mandate is to conduct business activities in such a way that they do not commit business resources to social responsibility activities, like charity, that have the potential of reducing business profits (Watson and Prevos, 2009).

Business Ethics

Business ...

Milton Friedman believes that in a free society we must not forget that there are two types of freedom and they should not be confused. The proper role of the government is to consider these two ways of understanding freedom - which are freedom from coercion and freedom of ‘free of cost’- and help individuals reach their objectives, interfering with each other as minimum as possible. The government should create opportunities to help people achieve their goals, knowing of course that there is no absolute freedom in society. It is important to notice that for Friedman, the society ...

Introduction

This report is a critical analysis of an ethical dilemma in the workplace. It will include the evaluation of the facts of the case in order to establish the fundamental issues and matters at stake. From there, a review of the fundamental theories of the situation will be conducted. This will culminate in the identification of the different approaches and views. Afterward, there will be the application of the theories to the facts of the case in order to conclude with recommendations on how to deal with the issues at hand. This will include the review of important theories ...

04 September 20XX

SUMMARY: Economic Analysis, LLC contracted with the bi-partisan Committee on Legislative Initiatives to provide an analysis of the economics of legalization of marijuana. This summary presents the highlights of our findings. With regards the question - Should the Committee on Legislative Initiatives recommend passage of Senate Bill 5786, “The Legalization of Marijuana Act of 2017” - the answer is “yes.” This conclusion is made based on our economic analysis alone. We make no moral judgments. Milton Friedman summarized this issue best. By his estimate the current system of criminalizing marijuana results in 10,000 homicides a ...

Introduction

Milton Friedman was a renowned economist and a reputable advisor of the United President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who was a Conservative British Prime Minister. Friedman developed an influential and controversial manifesto on the role of the government in a free society on his work titled Capitalism and Freedom. His fundamental objective was to promote the laissez-faire economic policy by often disapproving the interventionist policies held by the government and their cost in economic efficiency and personal freedom within and outside the United States. It is with this light that Friedman provide his view on the significance of ...

Abstract

This essay examines the role of ethics in organizations or companies and how ethics can be taught and instituted in such entities. The research identifies that most organizations are set up to attain specific goals. In the case of companies, the main motive for creation is to attain the highest level of profits for shareholders. Ethics seem to reduce the economic returns of a company in the short run. This is in the form of direct costs for monitoring compliance and indirect costs in the form of lost opportunities. However, in the long-run, ethics seem to be beneficial rather ...

Contrary to a person, who can exercise their responsibilities directly, companies are inanimate bodies without such capabilities. However, the stakeholders of a company are able and supposed to undertake the corporate social responsibilities, which is vital to the sustainability of a company. According to Steve (20), a company has the responsibility of delivering quality products to its customers and protects the welfare of the society while complying with the laws and regulations of the government in which it operates. The ability of a corporation to adhere to its corporate responsibility significantly determines its level of achievement (Steve 133). It ...

Introduction

A survey conducted by The Telegraph (2015), revealed that a large number of female students in the UK have been victims of sexual assault. Unfortunately, there has been a refusal among university and college officials in the country to investigate these accusations of indecent sexual advances. While academic authorities have been warned about their refusal to act and protect women from these forms of assaults, some officials asserted that it was not necessary to intervene because these cases are purely a police matter (Goldhill & Bingham, 2015). The apparent failure of university and college officials to protect their students from ...

There are four groups of stakeholders: students, customers and WRC; Nike, FLA, and the factories where the products are manufactured; the labor force; and the University of Oregon. The first group would like to make the American companies more socially responsible and some of the stakeholders even want to return the production to the USA. The second group strives for effectiveness of the production and the acceptable working standards. The labor force is interested in the improved working conditions and the wages that are sufficient for living. Finally, the University of Oregon is a hostage of circumstance, because it ...

The theory of shock doctrine explains how stealth, force, and crisis can be employed in certain scenarios to support the implementation of some economic policies which include things like deregulation, privatization, and reduction in the provision of some social services (Norberg, 2008). As postulated by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism advances the theory is evident. Metaphorically, Klein looks at the previous electroshock therapy that was conducted with an aim of returning troubled patients to a state in which they were able to write a new personality (Harrison, 2009). It is possible that the ...

Business ethic

Milton Friedman is rumored to have said “The business of business is business.” Why would a free-market economist have made such a statement? Does such a philosophy have implications for business ethics? Milton Friedman was famously known for his quote that, ‘the business of business is business’. This quote calls upon every person involved in business, from business owners to employees to assume an important role in the workings of business. This implies that one should focus more on his or her business’ most important aspects. Apparently, the most important business activity is cash flow. This is the money ...

Synopsis

This paper discusses sustainable development and the leadership characteristics that initiate organizational change towards sustainability. In the increasingly competitive environment, leaders find themselves under constant challenges, which require them to embrace change and to steer their organization towards sustainability. Sustainable development, however, does not only pertain to economic sustainability, but it also pertains to environmental and social sustainability. Also known as the triple-bottom-line, this paper discusses the importance of achieving sustainable development through economic, environmental and social sustainability and the role of the leader in achieving this goal. Using real-life business scenarios, this paper provides contemporary examples of how ...

Environmental Worldview

For a very long period of time, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been well thought-out as a trend that arrived when a certain generation entered the workforce and become a stronger consumer existence in corporate America. In the society, business has been playing a big role which has triggered so many companies to subscribe into ways of minimizing the need for CSR or for methods to turn social responsibility in to a factor of making profits. Some people believes that CSR is an interruption that cease businesses performing to their prospective which cripple the economy while others believes that an effective CSR policy together ...

John Maynard Keynes (5th June 1883-21st April 1946) was one of the founders of modern macroeconomics. He was a British Economist, and he was in the Keynesian economics school of thought. His main contribution towards macro economics was the formulation of the Theory of Employment. His theory of employment opposed what the Classical Economists proposed.

In the theory of Employment, Keynes argues that the main cause for unemployment was insufficient expenditure in investment. Keynes argues that unemployment is as a result of rigidity in wages. The low demand for output and workers to perform a job causes involuntary unemployment. The classical economist ...

Milton Friedman was a renowned American economist, writer and statistician who was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics sciences for his exemplary efforts in research on consumption analysis, complexity of stabilisation policy, and the economics of monetary history and theory. He was born in 1921 to Jewish immigrants. Friedman earned his B.A degree at the Rutgers University at the age of twenty; he later did his M.A in the University of Chicago and completed his Ph.D. from the Columbia University in the year 1946. Apart from being a lead researcher in the field of free market economics, Milton Friedman has ...

Introduction

History of Economic Thought is a subject which is has a critical account of development of all emerging economic ideas, seeking for their originsand, in most cases, trying to figure out their results.The history of economic thought is concerned with thinkers and theoriesin the fields of political economy as well as general economics from the far past ranging to the immediate present (Roll 1996, p23).The broad subject of economics was considered as a distinct discipline until the 19thcentury. For instance, the ancient Greek philosopher named Aristotle, in one of his works on ethics and politics thought about the ‘art of ...

Section 1: What is the something else that DeSoto argues is necessary for a capitalist economy to produce wealth? Choose and explain one example or counter example used by DeSoto to make his case. The developed capitalist economies have the wealth to produce more financial resources for the investors. The individuals in the developed countries have houses, lands, and many other assets depending on those they can produce financial resources through the developed financial markets to make relatively more and more investments. Consequently, according to DeSoto, the capital is the most influential factor to be relatively more competitive in ...

This paper is divided into three sections. The first section is a review of academic research and studies on corporate theories, positions and counter-positions. The second part discusses the two theories – stakeholder value theory and shareholder value theory. This section evaluates key arguments associated with each theory. In the third part, the paper evaluates why value-driven stakeholder approach should be embraced by managers of corporations. The paper finalizes the discussion by concretizing the arguments in a summary and offering submissions for future managers. This paper hypothesizes that profit maximization is no longer the only priority of organizations; other non-economic features ...

Corporate Social Responsibility in Business

Introduction This paper seeks to critically analyze the role that corporate social responsibility plays in a business entity`s pursuit of its over-riding objective, which is to maximize profits and increase shareholders` wealth. The paper seeks to draw the relationship between effective corporate social responsibility strategies of a business as a key ingredient in its accomplishment of the profit-maximization objective in the modern-day business environment. The paper will analyze whether the Milton Friedman`s assertion that businesses should only be interested in seeking profits and operating within the rules is true, or whether the integration of comprehensive social responsibility initiatives of a ...

Term Paper

According to Higss, is the growth of government continuous or does it occur fits and starts? What is Higgs’ explanation for this pattern of growth of government? Higss proposes that the growth of the government in the United States can be explained as a process of responding to crises. In this assertion, Higss specifically refers to the First World War, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Second World War among other major crises that have occurred in the history of the United States. In his reference to the crisis theory, Higss argues that each of these crises ...

The primary ethical problem in this company is shareholder and management problems. Some of the shareholders of KOTEL are also in the top management team of both I-Tech hence there exist conflict of interest for these top management. I-Tech is not performing well and the president and vice president of KOTEL clearly know that but they decide to acquire it despite the fact that this company is not performing well. They want to acquire this company to save themselves the losses they will incur should I-Tech fall. The president and the vice president do not mind the impact that ...

Part 1. What is the something else that DeSoto argues is necessary for a capitalist economy to produce wealth? Choose and explain one example or counter example used by DeSoto to make his case. Capitalism refers to an economic system that is based on the functionality of free market; open competition; profit maximization motive and the means of production are owned and produced by the private sector or by cooperatives that limit the government or state control of resources. In this social system, the capitalist class own most of the properties and are paid to produce the goods and ...

- INTRODUCTION Whether businesses should have good corporate ethos and business ethics in order to be successful is one would hope, no longer under question. This implies that no one is required to justify the significance of having ethical business organizations as argued by Milton Friedman (Friedman, Savage, & Becker, 2007)). However, it is still crucial to determine how good corporate ethos and business ethics influence the performance of a business. Business ethics and corporate ethos have been used interchangeably over years to define the achievement of business success through ways which honor the ethical values and respect communities, ...

The War on Drugs has been fought for the past several decades in the United States – billions of dollars have been spent fighting the flow of illegal drugs into America, seemingly to no avail. Millions of Americans use illegal drugs (marijuana, cocaine, heroin) regularly, and even the most well-organized and efficient anti-drug efforts seem to do little against this. With that in mind, it is time to reevaluate the moral and philosophical objections to drugs in the US; philosophers such as Milton Friedman would argue that it is best to decriminalize drugs and make them legal. On the other ...

Introduction.

Born in 1912 by Jewish immigrants in New York, Milton Friedman was a renowned statistician and economist best known for his contributions in the free-market capitalism. Throughout his distinguished career, Friedman made major contributions to the analysis and conducts of economics and economic policies. His significant work encompassed money, economic history, economic methodology, micro and macro-economics, international economics and economic policy (Friedman, Savage, and Becker, 2007). His work towards the development of economics as a subject remains a key mark in the literature of development of economics. Most of his theories and concepts are still in use, in most economies; however, to a ...

In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2010), Naomi Klein found numerous examples of how the United States imposed a system of free trade, free markets and laissez faire capitalism on the rest of the world over the past forty years, through manufacturing crises to impose ‘shock treatments’ and structural adjustments on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Eastern Europe, or simply taking proper advantage of a crisis that was already underway. She calls the many “orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with the treatment of disasters as exciting market ...

Question 1

Keynesian argument The Keynesian ideas were developed in 1930s at the time of Great Depression when orthodox economists had failed to explain the rising effects of unemployment and downturn of the economy. Earlier economists had argued that economy should be left to operate on itself without any external interventions from the government. Keynesian advocates for government interventions. In the case of unemployment, he suggests that the government should intervene by increasing its spending and decreasing level of taxation, which are fiscal policy tools. Through these interventions, there will be increase in aggregate demand and output which, in the ...

Milton Friedman Background

Milton Friedman was an American economist, author and a statistician born on 31st July 1912 Brooklyn, New York. Milton Friedman attended and graduated from Rahway High School in 1928. He graduated with a Masters in mathematics from Brown University and masters in Economics from the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of Chicago where he later became the leader of the University. Milton made major contributions to the economics when he was the leader. He is known for major contributions and research on the consumption analysis, theory and history of money and the concept of stabilization policy. He has ...

Introduction

In recent years, the term social corporate responsibility (CSR) has captured the minds of many people. It refers to the activities of corporations in giving back to the society. However, as CSR is being integrated into organizations, the debate on its concepts intensifies. As viewed in different studies, CSR is concerned about legal obligations of companies, which are directed towards the both the environment and society. Because of this fact, there are a number of measures, which are implemented to create an environment that is adaptive to enterprises (European Union, 2011). As indicated in the European Union (2011) website, ...

Statement of the ethical dilemma

The ethical dilemma in this case is tom’s consideration of whether or not to tell on the actions of Mary and Brenda. This is because on one hand, he considers the fact that Michael takes high pride on his job and would do anything to keep it running. Similarly, in the event that anything went wrong, the bottle shop would close down and they would be rendered jobless. On the other hand, he is sympathetic of Brenda’s situation as everyone is aware of the hardships that she faces (Jennings, 2010). She is a single parent with one kid ...

Introduction

An initially challenge faced by any scholar attempting to study neoliberal ideology in more detail is the apparent lack of written literature on neoliberalism from a neutral or sympathetic point of view. In real sense, everyone writing about the ideology do so as part of a critique of the ideology. According to this critical analysis, neoliberalism refers to the rejuvenation and spread of one specific aspect of liberal tradition, namely economic liberalism. Funder mentally, economical liberalism refers to the notion that states should abstain from intervening in the economy, and instead leave space for individuals to participate freely in self-regulated markets. ...

John Maynard Keynes founded the dominant school of economic policy in the Western world from the 1930s to the 1970s, and argued that an expansionary fiscal policy through deficit spending was essential to stimulate the economy in a recession or depression. During this period, social welfare spending, strong labor unions and regulation of capitalism were part of the social democratic consensus, but all of this came unraveled in the stagflation and oil shocks of the 1970s. Stagnation and decline in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union of the planned economies were evident and began to crumble under the pressures of inflation, ...

The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s opened the door to a revival of unregulated, free market capitalism in opposition to the Keynesian social democratic and welfare state policies that had been the norm since the 1930s and 1940s. Wall Street was largely left unregulated for many years, which led to speculative booms and repeated crashes, with the worst of occurring in 2008-09. Poverty and inequality increased in the U.S., while major social, economic and public health issues were ignored. In foreign policy, Reagan’s support for various ‘freedom fighters’, including Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, set the stage for the attacks ...

ABSTRACT

As engines of wealth creation, businesses have long been viewed as entities that must operate free of ethical standards of social responsibility. Many, including economist Milton Friedman, have contended that the well-being of America’s corporate/financial edifice depends on unfettered corporate interests, manned by employees whose only requirement is that they must obey the letter of the law. However, events of recent years, during which corporate and financial malfeasance has contributed to the nation’s current economic malaise, have reopened the debate over the role of business ethics. More contemporary observers have argued that there are no “shades of ...

Conflicts in measuring income disparity in Hong Kong

In terms of comparison between the west and east, parallels are often drawn between the two cities of New York and Hong Kong. They are both relative in terms of population, square foot area, lifestyles and even constructions and economy. However, unlike New York, Hong Kong’s rise to power in the global economic scene started only in mid 90’s and had shown exponential results—its gross GDP growing a whopping 180 times in the period between 1961 and 1997. The city had been popularly described as “World’s greatest experiment in laissez-fare capitalism” by Milton Friedman. In ...

Introduction

Many companies engage in corporate social responsibility engaging in charitable acts. There has been focused attention on this topic. Milton Friedman suggested that corporate social responsibility applies only to the shareholders of the company. Other parties should not be considered. The managers should only concentrate on maximising shareholder’s wealth and ensure the firm constantly makes profits. This concept goes against the widely held view that a company should practice social responsibility to several stakeholders such as the customers, employees, suppliers and the local communities. The concept proposed by Milton is known as the Shareholder Concept of social responsibility while ...