Businesses do not have social responsibilities; only people do

From Henry Miller: Businesses don't have social responsibilities; people do. Excerpt:

Businesses do not have social responsibilities; only people do. Inasmuch as corporate leaders work for the owners of the business, their responsibility is to pursue the best interests of their employers -- interests that relate primarily to making as much money as possible while conforming to the legal rules and ethical norms of society. By taking actions on behalf of the company that he arbitrarily decides are ''socially responsible,'' a corporate executive is, in effect, spending someone else's money by reducing returns to shareholders.

One of the easiest things to do is to spend other people's money on causes in which you believe; one of the most difficult, but most meaningful, is to spend your own money. If these executives donated even 5 percent of their salaries to such causes, they would be worthy of admiration, even if the causes were repugnant to some of us. ...

Neither free enterprise nor the human condition is likely to benefit if companies decide to follow Vasella's model. Their actions would, however, raise the cost of doing business, lower corporate productivity and feed the United Nations' predilections for meddling. By diverting resources away from productive uses, businesses would end up hurting many of the very people they claim to want to help.