BA 495A - Strategic Management - Spring 2021

Milton Friedman

July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006

Milton Friedman was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics.  Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, which is heavily based on the concept of rational expectations. Several students and young professors who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists including Thomas Sowell.

Friedman was an advisor to Republican President Ronald Reagan and Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal government intervention in social matters.

Read Friedman's essay linked above entitled The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.

The Business Roundtable

The Business Roundtable (BRT) is a nonprofit association based in Washington, D.C. whose members are chief executive officers of major United States companies. Unlike the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members are entire businesses, BRT members are exclusively CEOs. 

The Business Roundtable works to promote a thriving U.S. economy and expanded opportunities for all Americans through sound public policies.

After reading both Friedman's essay and the Roundtable's statement, read the related editorial commentaries from The Wall Street Journal and its editorial board (linked above).

These were published in August 2019 after the Roundtable's statement was published (except for one that was published later that fall). 

One year after the Business Roundtable released its Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, The Wall Street Journal published a number of  number of articles, on both sides of the issue, that looked back on any changes it may have brought over the preceding year.

These articles are provided in the file above.