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FRIEDMAN’S “THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSINESS IS TO INCREASE ITS PROFITS”: A CRITIQUE FOR THE CLASSROOM Craig P. Dunn and Brian K. Burton Western Washington University 516 High Street Bellingham, WA 98225-9075 360-650-2593 (Dunn) 360-650-3389 (Burton) Craig.Dunn@wwu.edu Brian.Burton@wwu.edu Abstract: Keywords: Milton Friedman’s 1970 article “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” is likely one of the most assigned, and most debated, papers in social issues pedagogy. Written 35 years ago, it was not an academic paper (published in the New York Times Magazine). However, academics (especially in the field of Business Society) have been responding to it, in print and in the classroom, since its publication (for examples, see DesJardins and McCall, 1990; Mulligan, 1986). Friedman was attempting to debunk the notion, beginning to gain traction at the time, that corporations (and thus the managers who work for them) have a responsibility to act to increase social welfare, regardless of the law on the issue at hand (whether that issue be discrimination, pollution, or something else). In his view, managers have a moral responsibility to act always in the long-run best interest of the shareholders. He is not arguing that businesses should never engage in activities that increase the social welfare; in fact, he argues that free-market capitalism itself increases social welfare. He also notes that businesses certainly will engage in activities that will increase social welfare. However, in Friedman’s view the manager’s sole motivation for such engagement must always remain long-term increa