The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits

Adam Smith covered this concept pretty well.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the publick, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the publick, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

The interest of the dealer, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respect different from, and even opposite to, that of the publick. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the publick; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they would normally be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.

Power and riches appear then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and which, in spite of all our care, are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. ...
But though this splenetic philosophy, which in time of sickness or low spirits is familiar to every man, thus entirely depreciates those great objects of human desire, when in better health and in better humour, we never fail to regard them under a more agreeable aspect. Our imagination, which in pain and sorrow seems to be confined and cooped up within our own persons, in times of ease and prosperity expands itself to every thing around us. We are then charmed with the beauty of that accommodation which reigns in the palaces and economy of the great; and admire how every thing is adapted to promote their ease, to prevent their wants, to gratify their wishes, and to amuse and entertain their most frivolous desires. If we consider the real satisfaction which all these things are capable of affording, by itself and separated from the beauty of that arrangement which is fitted to promote it, it will always appear in the highest degree contemptible and trifling. But we rarely view it in this abstract and philosophical light. We naturally confound it, in our imagination with the order, the regular and harmonious movement of the system, the machine or economy by means of which it is produced. The pleasures of wealth and greatness, when considered in this complex view, strike the imagination as something grand, and beautiful, and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it.
And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.

Just read it. He’s pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits.

He also made remarks which ought to be truisms about the way states work. He pointed out that its totally senseless to talk about a nation and what we would nowadays call “national interests.” He simply observed in passing, because it’s so obvious, that in England, which is what he’s discussing — and it was the most democratic society of the day — the principal architects of policy are the “merchants and manufacturers,” and they make certain that their own interests are, in his words, “most peculiarly attended to,” no matter what the effect on others, including the people of England who, he argued, suffered from their policies. He didn’t have the data to prove it at the time, but he was probably right.

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.
Chapter V.
Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.
Chapter V, p. 38.
In reality, during the continuance of any one regulated proportion, between the respective values of the different values of the different metals in the coin, the value of the most precious metal regulates the value of the whole coin.
Chapter V, p. 50.
The value which the workmen add to the materials, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of which the one pays their wages, the other the profits of the employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced.
Chapter VI, p. 58.
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
Chapter VI, p. 60.
A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
Chapter VII, p. 67.
The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating.
Chapter VII, p. 69.
Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.
Chapter VII, p. 72.
In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
Chapter VIII, p. 80.
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the workman. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.
Chapter VIII, p. 80.
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
Chapter VIII, p. 81

Don’t know much about this Chomsky guy but looking at the quotes you’ve provided he seems like the typical academical scholar divorced from reality.

I was hoping that you would connect the dots yourself as any good philosopher should do.

The version of him that’s given today is just ridiculous. But I didn’t have to any research to find this out. All you have to do is read. If you’re literate, you’ll find it out.

where are the laws against toxic disinformation?

There are laws against toxic waste, where are the laws against toxic disinformation?

FaceBook committed to fact checking.

How would a fact-checking institution be any less exposed to exactly the same economic and political incentives?

One way forward I can see is to make it more difficult for conflicts of interest to be hidden.

Often with these things if the public were just more discerning... (ie, if they shared my values) everything would improve.

My personal answer to that is role social media now plays as arbiter of truth. The battles are no longer fought between academics, they're fought on social media, so there's been a shift in what qualifies a person to be part of the debate, and it's not their academic qualification.

I also think that because so many people feel like they are foot soldiers in a culture war these days

Do you think there's a practical way out of our mutually destructive ideological lynch mobs?

Yeah, 'cos that really sorts out the corporate control over information, put a private corporation in control of information...

Yeah, not only odd alliances, but the beliefs become tokens of group membership. To strongly profess a belief that X is to be s member of that group. Of course, belief expression has always been one of the tokens used to identity group membership, but social media has exaggerated its role to the point where it's basically the only token that's recognised. I'm probably going to sound like an old curmudgeon saying this, but I remember a time not too long ago where I might have a pretty heated argument with a colleague on some matter over which we disagreed, but we'd neither of us even dream of trying to delegitimise the other. We knew, even through the tension, that we were, in some ways, still part of the same group (privileged white male ivory-towered professer I'm afraid), but the point is that other tokens rendered us as being in the same group despite our clashing beliefs.

Seems to me that people often profess views for aesthetic reasons rather than because they are convinced of their truth.

I wrote it down as provocation.

Instead I would like to inject that while I like this "token" metaphor, I would use, if I were you, a different metaphor, "totem".

But in order to justify their real "point," they jumped on whatever "facts" that support their values/preferences

What I see wrong is that a fact is not correct just because it supports someone's values.

Facts about whether you are more likely to die if you take a vaccine or not, is not dependent on your preferences.

Corporations are part of our community and should be responsible to that community for how they conduct business and what they produce.

To argue corporations should conduct their business and decide what to produce based on community needs is socialism through and through.

To argue corporations should conduct their business and decide what to produce based on community needs is socialism through and through.

Fine by me. :wink:

It's in line with embedded liberalism. The main practical argument for it is that it should protect a capitalist economy from breakdowns like the Great Depression.

Anything beyond this is -- any social responsibility -- is socialism; i.e., infringement on private property rights and the freedom of individuals to pursue their self interests.

That should be its sole responsibility, within the bounds of the law.

Embedded liberalism was supported by Marxists and socialists. If it had continued to evolve, the US would be more leftist right now. Those who targeted it for destruction claimed that it was collectivism at it's worst and was bound to lead to some kind of slavery in America. The characterization of it as socialist isn't unacceptable.

Eh— If you need to go through exercises like these to remind yourself that people aren’t “orcs,” then there are bigger problems afoot.