A Quote by Milton Friedman

There is only one social responsibility of business

Milton Friedman

Quote Topics

Business Only Responsibility Social Social Responsibility

Quote Author

Milton Friedman
American - Economist
July 31, 1912 - November 16, 2006

Speeches by businessmen on social responsibility...may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked.... There is one and only one social responsibility of business-to...engage in open and free competition without deception or fraud.

Milton Friedman

We need government and business to work together for the benefit of everyone. It should no longer be just about typical "corporate social responsibility" where the "responsibility" bit is usually the realm of a small team buried in a basement office - now it should be about every single person in a business taking responsibility to make a difference in everything they do, at work and in their personal lives.

Richard Branson

Few relationships are as critical to the business enterprise as the relationship to the government. Managers have responsibility for this relationship as part of their responsibility to the enterprise itself. It is an area of social impact of the business. To a large extent the relationship to government results from what businesses do or fail to do.

Peter Drucker

Business is correct to defend its right to act in order to produce a vigorous and engaging prosperity. But it is wrong if it forgets that this freedom can only be experienced within the discipline of social responsibility.

Paul Hawken

Businesses should be focused on business, and social responsibility should be government responsibility.

Terry Gou

Businesses should be focused on business and social responsibility should be government responsibility.

Terry Gou

Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees - just as government has for its citizens.

Charles Derber

Under the notion that unregulated market-driven values and relations should shape every domain of human life, the business model of governance has eviscerated any viable notion of social responsibility while furthering the criminalization of social problems and cutbacks in basic social services, especially for the poor, young people and the elderly.

Henry Giroux

I know different ways of looking at things. I have my stockholders, and I feel a very keen responsibility to the shareholders, but I feel that the main responsibility I have to them is to have the stock appreciate. And you only have it appreciate by reinvesting as much as you can back in the business. And that's what we've done... and that has been my philosophy on running the business.

Walt Disney

There is a Party of fiscal responsibility... economic responsibility... social responsibility... civic responsibility... personal responsibility... and moral responsibility. That party is the Democratic Party.

Howard Dean

There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.

Milton Friedman

Corporate Social Responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it because it is good for our business

Niall FitzGerald

Together with the social responsibility of businesses, there is also the social responsibility of consumers. Every person ought to have the awareness that 'purchasing is always a moral-and not simply an economic-act.

Pope Francis

Businesses who are members of Businesses for Social Responsibility or the Social Venture Network are internalizing costs on a voluntary basis and therefore raising their costs of doing business, but their competitors are not required to.

Paul Hawken

Social justice is collectivism. Social justice is the rights of a group. It denies individual responsibility. It's a negation of individual responsibility, so social justice is totally contrary to the Word of God.