Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [151]
13. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 751.
14. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: Methuen & Co., 1776), bk. 1, ch. 5, para. 1.
15. Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. 4, ch. 2, para. 9.
16. For a more in-depth discussion of the responsibilities of business toward other people’s interests, see Matthew F. Pierlott, “It’s Not Personal . . . It’s Just Bizzyneuss: Business Ethics, the Company, and Its Stakeholders,” and Johann A. Klaassen and Mari-Gretta G. Klaassen, “Speaking for Business, Speaking for Trees: Business and Environment in The Lorax,” in the present volume.
17. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), 98–137.
18. Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, ed. C. P. Dutt (New York: International Publishers, 1966), 10.
19. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 10.
20. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 11.
Chapter 16
1. See Mackey’s contribution to the debate, subtitled “Putting Customers Ahead of Investors” in “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” Reason 37, no. 5 (October 2005), 28–32.
2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.6, trans. W. D. Ross, classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html (May 20, 2010).
3. For the condensed and oft-anthologized expression of this view, see: Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” New York Times Magazine (September 13, 1970), 122–26.
4. For further discussions of property see Aeon J. Skoble, “Thidwick the Big-Hearted Bearer of Property Rights,” and Henry Cribbs, “Whose Egg Is It, Really? Property Rights and Distributive Justice” in the present volume.
5. In order to keep these thinkers and their theories straight, I offer this Seussian pneumonic device: “While Freeman is free to take stock of the stakeholders, for Friedman, it’s freedom that’s at stake for the stockholders.”
6. For an articulation of Freeman’s standard version, see E. Freeman and D. Reed, “Stockholders and Stakeholders: A New Perspective on Corporate Governance,” in Corporate Governance: A Definitive Exploration of the Issues, ed. G. Huizinga (Los Angeles: UCLA Extension Press, 1983). For an articulation of differing contexts in which it’s invoked, see T. M. Jones and A. C. Wicks, “Convergent Stakeholder Theory,” Academy of Management Review 24, no. 2 (April 1999), 206–21. For a nice overview of the historical development of the debate see H. Jeff Smith, “The Shareholders vs. Stakeholders Debate,” MIT Sloan Management Review (Summer 2002), 85–90.
7. See Friedman’s contribution to the debate, subtitled “Making Philanthropy Out of Obscenity,” in which he sees talking about other stakeholders’ interests as mere rhetoric, where acting on them must always contribute to the bottom line or be avoided: “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” in Reason, vol. 37, no. 5 (October 2005), 28–32.
8. Friedman, “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business,” 28–32, 30.
9. For a perfect example in business ethics literature, arguing that deception in business negotiations is moral because it is conventionally expected, see: Albert Carr, “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?,” Harvard Business Review 46 (1968), 143–53.
10. For a more in-depth treatment of Kantian ethics see Dean A. Kowalski, “Horton Hears You, Too! Seuss and Kant on Respecting Persons,” in the present volume.
11. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 38.
12. Jim Puzzanghera, “Retailers Fined over Digital TV,” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2008, articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/11/business/fi-tv11 (May 20, 2010).
13. Directive 2007/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2007, Official Journal of the European Union L 332/27-45,