Friedman says in his essay that the only social responsibility of a business is to make money for its shareholders. But what about in an occasion such as this? In 2012, a factory fire in Bangladesh killed 400 workers, trapping them inside a eight story building. They had been on a tight deadline; when the alarm sounded, some managers told the workers to disregard the alarm and keep going. Is it the responsibility of the company to insure safe working conditions, even if they will have to pay more for it? Is it up to the company to make sure that the damages caused by the fire is reimbursed? What kind of social responsibility does the company have under these circumstances?
It’s true that businesses are about making money. But it is also true that good business, is good business. The clothing that the workers in that factory had been making was of Disney. After tremendous public scrutiny, Disney announced that it was going to move its factories out of Bangladesh. This doesn’t mean that Disney is going to use factories with reasonably paid workers and safer working conditions, but at least this means that Disney is aware of the public backlash of disregarding social responsibility and focusing only on the responsibility to the shareholders.