Mini Show #24: SCOTUS, Olympics, Family Dollar, Corporate Evil, and More!

In this influential essay, Milton Friedman posits that the sole social responsibility of a business is to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits, so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which means engaging in open and free competition without deception or fraud. Friedman argues that corporate executives are agents of the shareholders and should not spend company resources on social causes without the shareholders' approval. He believes that shareholders, customers, or employees can individually decide how to support social causes with their own money, rather than through the company's actions.

The book explores how the ideas 'what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker,' 'always trust your feelings,' and 'life is a battle between good people and evil people' have become embedded in American culture. These 'Great Untruths' contradict basic psychological principles and ancient wisdom, leading to a culture of safetyism that interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. The authors investigate various social trends, including fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the impact of social media, as well as changes on college campuses and the broader context of political polarization in America.

In this book, Jonathan Haidt draws on twenty-five years of research on moral psychology to explain why people's moral judgments are driven by intuition rather than reason. He introduces the Moral Foundations Theory, which posits that human morality is based on six foundations: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Haidt argues that liberals tend to focus on the care/harm and fairness/cheating foundations, while conservatives draw on all six. The book also explores how morality binds and blinds people, leading to social cohesion but also to conflicts. Haidt aims to promote understanding and civility by highlighting the commonalities and differences in moral intuitions across political spectra.

The Golden Passport provides a detailed history of Harvard Business School, exploring its profound influence on modern society and its role in shaping Western capitalism. The book critiques HBS for failing to achieve its founders' goal of producing leaders who handle business problems in socially constructive ways, often prioritizing profit over social responsibility.