Question
According to Milton Friedman, “Business has only one social responsibility – to make profits (as long as it stays within the legal and moral rules of the game established by society). Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.” Explain why you agree or disagree with such a statement.
Additional information:
Milton Friedman was the recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1976.
“Not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:4, NIV).
Target’s community giving: “Target has a long-standing tradition of strengthening families and communities through innovative programs and partnerships. Since 1946, we have contributed 5 percent of our annual income to support families and communities, and today we remain one of very few companies that maintain this level of sustained giving. Target gives more than $3 million each week to the communities in which we do business. Our giving is directed both by Target and by the Target Foundation, each with specific areas of focus and commitment” (Target Corporate Responsibility Report 2007, p. 3).

Reply
Although Milton Friedman’s statement comes off very intense and one-sided, if you further analyze his statement you can potentially agree with him as I did. Initially reading his statement I became pretty defensive however, after analyzing the reasoning’s behind his dialogue is true. Most businesses today are only existent because of profits and that means profits for themselves and the public. If there was no demand for their products or services, their business would not live to exist another day and therefore, it would not be profiting their customers. The word “profits” in his statement did not just mean profits for the business but also the public as it is a social responsibility. If businesses were not making some kind of profit whether for themselves or for the public than their reasons to continue to exist would also not be there.
Take Target’s community giving as an example. In order for them to continue to donate and contribute to families and communities, they must have some sparing profits in the company in order to accomplish this. These donations are coming from the profits that they have made and as part of their social responsibility, they are doing so by making this donations and being committed to continue to help struggling families. Furthermore, by them also contributing to society they are marketing themselves as an ethical company where customers are going to want to continue buying from their store. In fact, a survey has found that more than half of American consumers are influenced in their purchasing decisions due to the organizations social reputation and 70 percent of United Kingdom consumers are willing to pay more for a product or service from a company that they deem as ethically superior (Kitzmueller & Shimshack, 2012, p. 52).
In addition to helping out external communities, profits in a business can also help out their own employees with resources to better perform their duties and even incentives such as annual bonuses. In fact, incentives have been shown to affect how resources are used and how hard workers work and this is all accomplished by a manager grasping the role of incentives to induce maximal effort from their employees (Baye & Prince, 2017, p. 10). This incentives are provided to their employees in most cases as holiday bonuses depending on how well the organization as a whole performed throughout the year and it in turns, help their employees feel appreciative for their hard work.
Having said that, for my reasons above, I do agree with Milton Friedman’s statement in regards to businesses social responsibility being profits