Tyler Cowen Disses Profit Maximization

Tyler Cowen

Charles Koch-sponsored Tyler Cowen is out with a new book Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals where he virtue signals that corporations have a role beyond profit maximization.


From a  George Melloan review of the book in The Wall Street Journal:

He differs from one of his heroes, the late free-market economic philosopher Milton Friedman, who in 1970 averred that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Writes Mr. Cowen: “Friedman failed to understand that the cultural, intellectual, ideological, and even emotional foundations of business go far beyond an attachment to profit. People care about what they do, and they seek meaning through their jobs. Profit maximization is best thought of as a convenient fiction that does a fairly good job boosting profits precisely because it rejects a sole emphasis on profits as a goal.”

-RW