![]() ![]() The story begins in the 1930s, when European and American liberals huddled to regenerate liberalism in the ruins of the Great Depression. Published articles, we can recover the evolution of an antimonopoly critiqueĮxplicitly rooted in a central insight of classical liberalism. Speeches, interviews, and correspondence now held in archives, and even other My forthcoming research points to a surprising explanation for his ideas about social responsibility: his concern about business self-dealing and monopoly.Ī lot to say about business and its social responsibilities. Few, however, have considered the historical development of Friedman’s argument. ![]() While generations of profit-maximizers welcomed his classic statements in Capitalism and Freedom and in the New York Times Magazine, his claims also provoked a torrent of critical responses. These two criticisms are leveled at Milton Friedman, in part, due to his argument that the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. He was naively pro-business and disinterested in the problem of monopoly. You can read all of the pieces in the series here. To try to address this deficiency, we decided to launch a Sunday column on ProMarket focusing on the historical dimension of economic ideas. ![]() Friedman’s New York Times Magazine article on the social purpose of business was a specific intervention in the debate over shareholder activism and mentions monopolies just once, yet monopoly is still behind his reasoning.Įditor’s note: The current debate in economics seems to lack a historical perspective. ![]()
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