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Question: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits (Friedman, 1970). Critically discuss this Statement in the Light of Contrasting theories that Emphasize, as Well as examples that Highlight, the Case For Corporate Social Responsibility. Answer: Introduction The main idea of social responsibility in business is to maintain balance between the business plan and social responsibility. It can be said that in most of the occasions the operational strategy of business does not consider about the relationship between the society and environment. The aim of the current report is to critically discuss the statement of Friedman in 1970. The statement was highly controversial in the context that it contradicted most of the theories related with that of the corporate social responsibility of the business. The important elements of the theories related to the corporate social responsibility will be the main discussion point of the current study. Theories of Corporate Social Responsibility The main purpose of the corporate social responsibility in business is to ensure no unethical practice is being implemented in the marketing plan to make excess profit. The competitive environment of today's business world is getting tougher due to aggressive safe strategies implicated by most of the companies. Large scale business organization often implement the power to bring about change in the business environment. The corporate social responsibility is the set of ethical laws that has to be followed by every business organization in order to maintain their social reputation (Carroll 2015). The laws of corporate social responsibility ensure that interest of every group of stakeholders are being protected with implementation of every business policy. One of the major purpose of implementing the elements of corporate social responsibility is to ensure sustainable development in business economy. The elements of Corporate Social Responsibility ensure that the profit that are earned from the business are utilized for the social development and welfare activities. Economic responsibility of the company is to ensure profit that can be evident from the financial growth along with increased value of the companys equity. In the market of modern economy, it is highly essential for every business organization to makes sufficient amount of profit in order to sustain in the tough competitive environment. There is also the component of legal responsibility, where business organizations have to strictly follow the legal rules and policies. These policies are implemented as a part of Business Law, which helps to ensure that there is no illegal or unfair trade practice implemented in any form of business transaction. Business organization can follow the principles of legal responsibility by paying proper business or trade taxes to the local authority. Korschun et al. (2014), have mentioned about the importance of ethical responsibility, where it is important for business organization to ensure that the business activities do not cause any harm to the environment. Implementation of green business ideas that include ecofriendly way of manufacturing products and delivering service are few of the major components of ethical responsibility. The philanthropic responsibility is another major component of corporate social responsibility. In this case it is the duty of an organization to contribute direct fund for social welfare activities. This is also believed to be one of the effective ways to improve the business reputation and brand recognition. One of the major social responsibility of every business organization is to provide proper employment to the society. The large-scale multinational business organizations are few of the biggest recruiters that play an important role in the social developmental work. Peake and Eddleston (2017), has mentioned about the importance of the Triple bottom line theory, which is another major components of the social business responsibility. According to the component of this theory, it is the duty of the corporate leaders to ensure that both economic and social context of business are being considered while implementing operational strategy. In order to maintain sustainability within the business process it is highly essential to consider every terms and condition of business. It is one of the challenging role of the business leader to properly ensure perfect balance between economic and social development in the business environment. This is believed to be one of the intersecting point of Business Ethics. In terms of economic sustainability, it is important to implement plan for long term financial growth (Saeidi et al. 2015). From the elements of triple bottom line, it is the duty of every large scale business organization to properly implement the bu siness plan for financial sustainability. This is believed to be one of the major criteria for success of startup companies. Large scale business companies like Google, apple and Microsoft has been able to introduce better economic policy for long term financial growth. The business leaders of to predict all possible situations of the future market environment and implement the plan according to long-term sustainability. Corporate sustainability in terms of economic development can help in the process of brand recognition. It can also help the company to properly utilize all forms of resources (Becker-Olsen and Guzmn 2017). Social sustainability is also one of the important criteria for implementing the triple bottom line theory. There has been increased in concerned about the global scenario, where rich people are getting richer and poor getting poorer (Grosser et al. 2017). This can increase the risk of society being collapse. The increase in the imbalance can also raise the risk of political violence, thereby compromising up on all forms of social development. Crane et al. (2013),have mentioned about the importance of fair trade movement that is believed implement ethical opportunity for implementing sustainable business strategy. It is also important to note that social sustainability can not only be maintained with the help of financial planning. It also requires understanding the capital market of modern business environment. Implementing policy such as minimum wage for workers at different level within an organization is one of the prime policy of maintaining social growth. Social sustainability also requires full cooperation from all types of citizens. This can help to develop healthy relationship between the people (Gupta et al. 2017). Environmental sustainability is the final component of the triple bottom line theory. This help to ensure that all forms of natural resources that are used by business organization do not face with any form of wastages. Recycling of materials can be one of the effective ways to maintain the protocol of environmental sustainability (Shang et al. 2014). This is believed to be one of the effective way to minimize the chance of resource wastage. Proper eco-friendly techniques also can be implemented in order to ensure minimum amount of greenhouse gas are being emitted from manufacturing units of the industries. Critical Analysis of the Friedmans Statement From the statement of Friedman, it is clear that the author wants to focus only upon the financial growth and sustainability of a business organization. The primary intention of all business entrepreneurs while initiating any startup companies to maximize the level of profit in terms of financial development. The statement provided by Friedman also focuses upon increasing the profit margin. This has been one of the major controversial topic mainly due to the fact that the statement is only concerned about one principle of Corporate Social Responsibility that has been mentioned in the above section. This statement also debunked the notion of all forms of social welfare activities that are usually associated with corporate social responsibility. During the time the author meant this statement, there was an increase in concerned about the social inequalities that was raising within the global economy (Di Benedetto 2017). Statement of the author also highlighted up on the fact that free market which was getting popular during the period of 1970s is one of the easiest way to maintain Social Responsibility in business. This is mainly due to the fact that free market enjoys the opportunity to make maximum amount of profit without any form of political or economic restrictions. It is also possible for the business owners to recruit more number of people within the company and thereby deal with the issue of unemployment. The author also believed about the fact that with increased amount of business profit it is possible for businessmen to make significant donation in social welfare activities. There is also one form of belief that the statement of Friedman is one of the best way to maintain principles of socialism. It will there be prevent the market to determine the exact pricing strategy that will be implemented for each product. Hybrid concept of capitalism and socialism can thereby help in improving the popularity of free market and thereby promoting the economy of the nation (Yin 2017). The increase in the trends of private competitive Enterprise, there is increasing risk of negligence about the elements of corporate social responsibility. Statement made by Friedman will help to force upon most of the important matters related to that of the free market economy. This will help to ensure that most of the business organization are able to expand with better level of Corporate strategies. According to the statement it may not be possible for a business organization to focus upon all major elements of corporate social responsibility and also the related theories associated with the same. If a business organization is solely focused upon making high level of business profit, it may not be possible for them focus upon the policies of economic and social sustainability that is believed to be an essential part of corporate social responsibility. It will also not be possible for the business organization to manage all forms of risks that are involved within the external business environment. With aggressive form of competitive strategies that are implemented by most of the multinational corporations, it may not be possible for them to consider about the facts social inequalities that are developing in the modern age. It may not be possible for the business organization to properly follow the ethical rules implemented by the local authority (Lee and Riffe 2017). There has been several reported case of large-scale multinational companies terminating huge number of employees in order to improve upon their profit margin and compensate for high level of loss. In many cases, when a large scale multinational corporation acquire some other company, there is high level of chance that most of the business organizations may implement change in the organizational structure. This type of situation increases the risk of promising on social responsibility and ethical rules followed by the organization (Di Giuli and Kostovetsky 2014). There is also the chance that a foreign company can cause serious damage to the local environment while installing any form of manufacturing units. As the business is mainly focused up on increasing the financial condition, it may not be possible for the company to deal with matters related to decreasing the greenhouse emissions gas from the manufacturing unit. Conclusion: In the conclusion note it can be said that the statement made by Friedman in 1970 about the fact that social responsibility of business is mainly to increase profit is highly controversial in the context of modern age. As mentioned within the principles of corporate social responsibility, it is highly essential for all business organization to ensure both economic and social development. The popularity of free market economy has been a major boost for private organization as they are able to expand their business. However, in the context of improving upon financial condition in many occasions it has been seen that business organization ignore about the fact related to social sustainability within the external business environment. In the context of the modern age this can be highly challenging due to the fact that without proper ethical rules and regulation there is high risk of compromising of business reputation. It is also important to mention about the fact that most of the large scale business organization of the modern age involves in various type of social welfare activity, which is believed to help in the business reputation. Few of the major examples of involving in social welfare activities can be given from the context of Microsoft Corporation. The social welfare organization initiated from the management of Microsoft Help in eradication of various form of diseases. It can therefore be concluded that the statement made by Friedman in 1970 is not applicable in the context of modern day has most of the principles of corporate social responsibility are being ignored. References: Becker-Olsen, K. and Guzmn, F., 2017. Corporate Social Responsibility Communication in North America: The Past, Present and Future. In Handbook of Integrated CSR Communication (pp. 293-315). Springer International Publishing. Carroll, A.B., 2015. Corporate social responsibility. Organizational dynamics, 44(2), pp.87-96. Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L.J., 2013. Corporate social responsibility in a global context. Di Benedetto, C.A., 2017. Corporate social responsibility as an emerging business model in fashion marketing. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, pp.1-15. Di Giuli, A. and Kostovetsky, L., 2014. 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