Profits and Purpose

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Capitalism and Social Responsibility

There is an excellent article that appeared in the October 2005 edition of "Reason" magazine. It is a debate among the late economist, Milton Friedman, John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, and T.J. Rodgers, the CEO of Cyprus Semiconductors. Regardless of whether one agrees with the views of Friedman and Rodgers that a corporation's sole objective should be to maximize profits or with Mackey's view that corporations ought to be engaged in a more broadly defined mission, the debate is well worth reading. You can check it out at http://www.reason.com/news/show/32239.html.