Milton Friedman and The Business Roundtable
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.
On August 17, 2019 the Roundtable released its updated Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, which represented a departure from its past views. Read this statement linked above.