Monitoring Buisness or Ethics

The argument that Friedman continues throughout the entire essay, as can be derived from the title, is that the only responsibility of a business is to maximize profits. He contests that business, primarily corporations, have no social responsibility or ethical responsibility so far as the business remains within the confines of the law. Friedman focuses on the executives of corporations stating that the executive was hired to serve the interests of his employers, the stockholders. If the executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for social purposes then he becomes in effect a civil servant and, as one should have been hired through a political process. Friedman claims that the executive .
             Ethics or Money 2.
             could have possibly been fired by the stockholders for reducing the corporation's profits and the price of its stock in favor of social responsibility. Friedman sums his essay up when he states, "There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally controlled system than effective governmental control of prices and wages" (Friedman, p.535).
             Moving on the other side of the business spectrum we have the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) and their Code of Conduct. Although the Code of Conduct cannot be places as far to the right on the spectrum as other people's views and ideas, one could see that any business would have the nearly impossible task of starting a business that maintains ideas and standards past that of the WRC's code of conduct. The code of conduct sets up many guidelines, some that businesses have to abide by regardless to remain within the law and others that are the minimal ethical standard that the businesses must adhere to in order to maintain there contract with affiliates with the WRC. The WRC has guidelines for minimum age requirements (Where the age for completing compulsory education is higher than the standard for the minimum age of employment "being 15", the higher age for completing compulsory education shall apply) and for health and safety which are not much more than current industry standards.