In 1970, future Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman argued in “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” a now-famous treatise published in The New York Times Magazine, that executives preoccupied with developing their businesses’ “social consciences” were marching America away from freedom and down the path to “pure and unadulterated socialism.”

Freedom, of course, has never been simple. Freedom cannot truly exist where discrimination is still practiced, where economic justice is unattainable, where illiteracy soars, where the environment is poisoned or amid any of dozens of adverse conditions that proponents of corporate responsibility would ask businesses to help solve.

Friedeman’s philosophies always seemed a step or two removed from the realities business owners face, but never more so than today. They are as out of date as a circa 1980 world map.

Consider how radically different are the ideas of Friedman and Ben Cohen, who was in town a couple of weeks ago as part of Drake University’s Bucksbaum Lecture Series. Cohen, who with his former business partner, Jerry Greenfield, built the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream empire on a philosophy of social responsibility, said their business was more successful because it reflected the social consciences of its customers than it would have been had it merely been preoccupied with making money. Imagine eavesdropping on a conversation between Friedman and David Korten, who was in Des Moines recently to talk about how local communities can work to eliminate the injustice perpetuated by absentee owners of large publicly traded companies singularly concerned with increasing profits.

In looking at the dozens of businesses and corporations in Greater Des Moines that have invested in the community’s success – whether through philanthropy, business relationships or mentoring programs – it’s hard to imagine that Friedman’s ideas were ever held in much favor. Project Destiny, the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s initiative to improve the quality of life and address social problems such as early childhood education and achievement gaps in poor neighborhoods, wouldn’t exist in Friedman’s models.

Corporate responsibility is our business.