NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE T he New York Times has observed the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s famous article “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” with an online symposium of contributions from 22 experts, including think-tank scholars and economists who, like Friedman himself, are Nobel Prize winners. The vast majority of the commentary is, few will be surprised to hear, neither approving nor generously offered.
Friedman’s argument that corporations should dedicate themselves to their business rather than social activism was, and remains, controversial to people who are uninterested in business but fancy themselves social-justice activists. It only makes sense to such activists that every company should prioritize the things that they themselves care about, and that the firms that selfishly refuse to do so should be shamed and regulated into compliance. But few of them would consider applying the same standards to their own favored organizations.
We’re told that corporations must subscribe to a more enlightened standard of conduct because they’re large, influential institutions that have significant impacts on the communities around them — they owe their extended web of stakeholders an implied duty simply by existing, even if no law, regulation, or contract stipulates it explicitly. But corporations are not the only influential institutions in American society. What about the grant-making foundations, advocacy groups, and activist networks that are working every day to change America and the laws and political norms that govern it? Don’t they have at least as much of an obligation to be “socially” responsible?
To take one example, environmental groups such as Greenpeace have famously been hostile to nuclear energy for decades. But an increasing chorus of voices, from energy economists to individual renegade environmentalists, now insists that only nuclear power can provide enough dependable energy to fuel a future in which governments limit the use of fossil fuels. The environmental movement’s history of anti-nuclear advocacy has likely put us far behind where we would otherwise be when it comes to advanced reactor technology. Surely the least environmentalists can do now is to bow out of the nuclear debate and let the world’s physicists and engineers solve our energy problems without further attacks.
Organizations that claim to be helping poor communities in the developing world also have a spotty track record. Collecting food, clothing, and other supplies donated by people in more prosperous countries and delivering them overseas seems like a splendid example of charity at work, but it also has the effect of devastating local economies. Local farmers and textile workers can’t compete with unpriced donations dumped in their market. One expert on the global clothing trade found that textile and clothing employment in Ghana fell by 80 percent between 1975 and 2000, largely because of the flood of Western donations. The Heritage Foundation published the report “How American Food Aid Keeps the Third World Hungry” all the way back in 1988, yet the same discredited charitable strategies are still employed by many NGOs today.
And what about the labor groups that support restrictions on who can work and in which jobs? “Closed shop” workplaces, occupational-licensing regimes, limits on independent contracting, and wage minimums that keep the least experienced workers from finding a job all hurt the poorest and least credentialed the most, and they’re all loudly cheered on by people claiming to be on the side of working Americans. Many such arrangements create a protected cartel for certain workers at the expense of all others. We would never allow private businesses to collude and exclude like this. Why don’t we insist that labor unions embrace the only socially responsible course of action and cease doing so?
There are plenty of other examples that could be used to show just how common it is for progressive nonprofit groups to put their own advancement ahead of the common good. Opposition to school choice keeps students trapped in under-performing public schools. Subsidized windmills chop up hundreds of thousands of birds and bats every year. Anti-sweatshop activism targeted at factories in Bangladesh actually delivered more young workers into the hands of the sex trade.
Despite decades of debate and mountains of evidence that left-leaning activist demands often lead to worse and less equitable social outcomes, few of these organizations seem to have learned their lesson. Can we really afford to let them keep damaging the poor and vulnerable while raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in donations every year? Surely they should have to at least sign on to a statement of principles, in which they promise not to do any more harm. Better yet, they should be actively undoing some of the decades of harm they’ve already caused.
Clearly, all of us should call for a show of ethical, sorrowful, and genuine (ESG) contrition. I just won’t hold my breath waiting for it.
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September 21, 2020 at 05:30PM
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Can We Afford to Let Left-Wing Activists Ignore Their Social Responsibilities? - National Review
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