I suppose there is a certain satisfaction from hearing one’s own views confirmed. I plead guilty. This is delicious. This is from the web site, Get Aktiv.

This is the key sentence from the essay.

Extrapolated into another scenario, Friedman would no doubt argue that a corporate executive would be duty-bound to offshore their operations to low-cost developing countries wherever it maximised profits, and this should only be done at the very lowest possible labour rates allowed by law so as to maximise corporate profits, even if the developing country has no effective wage protection and it is exploitative of the workers, provided that doesn’t bring financial harm to the company through loss of reputation – indeed, to pay a more ‘humane’ or ‘reasonable’ wage to staff than the absolute minimum that could have been negotiated is a reflection of an executive not performing his duties to the company.

On my flight back from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne yesterday, I took the opportunity afforded by flying AirAsiaX (sans onboard entertainment) to read another sizeable chunk of “Creative Capitalism: A Conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and other Economic Leaders”. I guess I’m a bit slow in getting to the literature of leading global economists but I can now say I’ve read Milton Friedman’s “The Social Responsibility of Business”, an essay f … Read More

via Get Aktiv