Economist Milton Friedman drew the wrath of anti-market business ethicists for his controversial 1970 essay “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” Business leaders seeking an ethical standard consistent with the free market should look elsewhere, however, because Friedman’s essay seems to exculpate a practice antithetical to the free market—corporate lobbying for special government favors.

Bureaucracy and GovernmentBusiness and EntrepreneurshipEconomistsEconomyFree Market EconomicsGovernment and PoliticsPhilosophy and Religion
Other Independent Review articles by Richard W. Wilcke
Fall 2003 More Arrows Bouncing Off the Great H. L. Mencken
Winter 1999/00 In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign against Competition, 1918-1938