THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 151, August 13, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF PROFITS
Good Companies Earn Money the Old Fashioned Way:
Working for It & Serving the Public
By Paul K. Driessen
PRIVATE ENTERPRISE CAPITALISM & THE COMMON GOOD: THE FREE & COMPETITIVE MARKET ECONOMY, THE
PROFIT MOTIVE, & THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PRIVATELY OWNED BUSINESSES TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC -- HOW
PROFIT-DRIVEN BUSINESS FIRMS EARN CONSISTENT PROFITS, STAY IN BUSINESS, & BENEFIT SOCIETY: OPERATING
WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF LAW & ETHICS TO PROVIDE GOODS, SERVICES, & TECHNOLOGIES THAT SOCIETY NEEDS &
VALUES; OFFERING PRODUCTS & SERVICES OF SUPERIOR QUALITY & GREATER RELIABILITY, AT LOWER COST; PROVIDING
OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER CARE; PROTECTING & ENHANCING THE ENVIRONMENT; & ADEQUATELY REWARDING THE
INVESTORS WHO MAKE BUSINESS INNOVATIONS & PRODUCTS POSSIBLE; FUNDING COMMUNITY-IMPROVEMENT
ACTIVITIES & PROJECTS.
FULL STORY:
“The social responsibility of business,” Milton Friedman famously said, “is to increase its profits.”
Some extol this view. Others condemn it. More simply misunderstand Dr. Friedman’s 1970 aphorism or quote it out of
context, often to serve anti-business ideologies or misguided legislative initiatives.
A more accurate interpretation reflects basic principles behind free enterprise, profits, and returns on investments –
principles that were well understood long before Adam Smith described them so eloquently in The Wealth of
Nations. Like codified and common laws, the principles are violated on many occasions, but the perpetrators
usually pay a price.
Companies do not earn consistent profits or even a supposed “license to continue operating” by subscribing to fads,
political schemes, or “corporate social responsibility” initiatives that reflect and promote the agendas of social or
environmental activists. They do so by providing goods, services, and technologies that society needs and values –
legally, ethically, and by offering superior quality, lower cost, greater reliability, outstanding customer care and other
benefits, while protecting the environment. They thereby stay in business and reward investors who made their
innovations and products possible.
This is the most fundamental way companies are socially responsible – to employees, customers, families, and
communities that have been improved by the companies’ actions. It also ensures that businesses, officers,
shareholders, and employees have the financial wherewithal to engage in other activities that we recognize and
applaud as “good deeds” on behalf of their communities.
Thousands of businesses do this on a regular basis. Here are just a few examples.
BB&T Corporation of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, operates 1,500 branches, insurance agencies and financial
services companies, with combined assets of over $125 billion. Its fundamental strategy, Chief Executive Officer John
Allison told me, is to emphasize quality over price via personal relationships with clients, employee education, and
banking operations organized as groups of community banks, to make employees “more responsive, reliable, and
empathetic.”
The company’s goal is to “help clients make sound business, banking and investment decisions, improve their lives
and gain financial security,” Allison said. If the community doesn’t do well, neither does the company. That’s the best
reason he knows for supporting civic projects like BB&T’s reduced-rate loans and other support to low and moderate
income housing projects, and small businesses and farms.
A basic BB&T ethical principle is defending free enterprise and property rights. In the wake of Kelo v. New
London, it gained respect, media coverage, and probably new customers by refusing to lend to projects that use
government eminent domain powers to acquire private property, by redefining “public purpose” to include private
enterprises that might increase tax revenues. “We just don’t do it,” Allison said flatly.
Skier’s Choice of Maryville, Tennessee, employs 400 people, manufacturing Moomba and Supra inboard ski boats that
make the joy of getting out on the water affordable to more families in the U.S.A. and beyond. Its focus on innovation,
quality, and dependability have made this privately held company an industry leader that strives for steady
improvements in performance, fuel efficiency and lower emissions in its boats, and reduced energy use and waste
streams in its production processes. The 2007 boats’ Indmar ETX/CAT-equipped Assault 340 engines feature the best
emissions rating ever in a marine engine.
The company doesn’t boast or post its civic programs, but they include support for local sports teams, therapeutic
horse riding for handicapped children and adults, Boy Scout boating and boat safety programs, and preservation of
Appalachian arts and crafts. It also offers free boating safety classes through the Coast Guard Auxiliary. It commitment
to reliability and service is likewise quiet, but unwavering.
I’ve always been more at home in a canoe or kayak, but my son wanted something better suited to his version of fun
with college friends. A used Moomba met his needs. When it developed serious engine problems, Skier’s Choice simply
helped get them fixed, even though the warranty had long since expired. “We just want to keep our customers happy, and
get them back in the water,” said Customer Service Director Rob Loucks.
CVS Caremark employed expansions, mergers, acquisitions, and commitment to affordable healthcare service to become
the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain, with over 6,000 stores in 38 states. CVS now fills more than one of every seven
prescriptions in the United States for individuals, corporations, unions, government employee groups, insurance
companies, and managed care organizations.
The company’s community involvement programs include helping pediatricians and families improve access to healthcare
for lower income children and people with Down syndrome, improving early literacy skills among homeless children, and
providing nutritional and fitness education to reduce obesity. A few months ago, my daughter sought help for a school
project: getting toiletries and other personal items to wounded warriors in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The
response of our local CVS store was far beyond our expectations.
We had barely outlined the project when the Manager began filling a shopping cart with several hundred travel-sized
containers of shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, shaving cream, skin lotion, and other items – to augment the $200 worth
of watches, hair brushes, deodorants, and other products we were purchasing. He then gave us a discount on our items,
saying simply that --
“... helping our wounded service men and women is one of the most
important things we can do. They have given us so much. We need
to give a little something back.”
All these actions and heartfelt sentiments speak more loudly than the philosophies behind them. They represent the best
that free enterprise and corporate America have to offer, in pursuit of profits and a commitment to improving lives through
products, services and community involvement.
It is therefore ironic that highly regulated for-profit corporations are so frequently subjected to intense criticism for real,
perceived, and even invented transgressions. More ironic is the fact that the criticism often comes from nonprofit
corporations that enjoy tax-exempt status, but are often guilty of dishonesty, “greenmail” campaigns, and a troubling
absence of transparency and accountability that harms poor families and calls into question whether their own “license to
continue operating” should be renewed.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The U.S. Constitution & the American Economic Order:
Civil Liberties -- Private Property Rights
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
-------------------------
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES:
COMPETING SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Conservatism
Traditional Conservatism: Questions & Answers
Conservatism: Attitudes, Types, & Present Status
Constitutional Conservatism: American & British
Liberalism
Classical Liberalism: Intellectual Foundations
Classical Liberalism: Conservative Liberalism
Manchester Liberalism & Social Darwinism
Modern Social "Liberalism": Statist "Liberalism"
Radical & Totalitarian Ideologies
Radicalism, Utopianism, & Totalitarianism
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity