Milton Friedman

In this essay I evaluate Milton Friedman’s essay: “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” in 1970, on the Social Responsibility of a business and his theory, which is called the “Efficiency Perspective”. In every article and book that I have read about social responsibility, Friedman’s “Efficiency Perspective is placed centrally. During my research I found that Friedman is often criticized for being too classical. Friedman believes that manager’s foremost objective or even moral obligation to the firm should be to maximize profits always. There is however one condition that makes his perspective more complicated, not only for me, but also for several well-known authors. According to Friedman, the managers’ obligations should be carried out: “…while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom”. This leads to one of the main questions of my essay: To what extent does Friedman’s “Efficiency Perspective” give foundation for responsible and moral international management behavior? And need we any concern if it fails to do so? To fully answer the questions, I first need to explain the two different parts of the first question: responsible international management behavior and moral international management behavior. In businesses nowadays they combine these two parts, respectively responsible and moral become social responsibility in international management. The second question anticipates the other theories and models we need to consider when Friedman’s efficiency perspective does not give foundation for social responsibility in international management.

However before I go in further detail, I first explain more about the concept social responsibility. After this I explain Friedman’s full theory, and how it related to these different models of social responsibility, and finally I will draw a conclusion.
As any professional looking to have a position in the corporate