Michael R. Strain, Columnist

If Business Wants a Social Cause, How About Globalism?

Here's an approach to corporate activism that even Milton Friedman could love.

February 28, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

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“There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”

So wrote Milton Friedman, the great economist and Nobel laureate. Someone should tell today’s corporate leaders, who are responding to the age of Trump in part by spending energy on activities other than directly increasing profits. “Corporate social responsibility” has become the topic of the day, and chief executives are entering the political fray with unusual frequency. And sometimes they’re doing so in ways Friedman might not have found objectionable.