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“Social responsibility”….[is a] fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society….“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 stays within the rules of the game (Milton Friedman, A Friedman Doctrine, New York Times, September 13, 1970).
In the foresight method Causal Layered Analysis, futurist Sohail Inayatullah describes four layers of understanding a futures problem or issue. The deepest and most fundamental layer is the myth-metaphor, the fundamental civilizational guiding story(s) around the issue, which are so ingrained that we are not even consciously aware of them.
Friedman’s doctrine noted above is at the core of the neoliberal capitalist baseline: the business of business is business. It is the fundamental myth-metaphor of the modern neocapitalist approach.I recently came across this 1970 piece cited above that succinctly summed up his views. I was a bit surprised that it seemed to be primarily motivated as a response to the idea of “social responsibility,” which is mentioned in scare quotes seven times. His essay is an argument that social responsibility has no place in business. In fairness, he suggests it may have a place elsewhere, but not in the business of running a corporation. The responsibility in that case is not social, but to earn as much profit as possible for the shareholders (within the rules of the game).
Today’s headlines often have roots extending deeply into the past. From today’s vantage point, social responsibility is a mainstream notion that is widely, though certainly not universally, accepted. Yet in the 1970s, it was a subversive notion. Readers who have followed the values thread will recognize the 1970s as the birth of postmodern values, indeed the very subversive counterculture notions of self-expression, participation, sustainability and the like. We might surmise that Friedman foresaw that pernicious impact that these values would have, which he wrapped up in the notion of social responsibility and attacked.
As I say in class when we learn CLA, when a foundational myth-metaphor is under attack, we must pay strict attention. — Andy Hines
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