The October 2005 issue of Reason magazine featured a debate between American laissez-faire economist Milton Friedman, Whole Foods’ John Mackey, and Cypress Semiconductor’s T.J. Rodgers.

Friedman, a professor at the University of Chicago, won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976. He is the author of a famous article that appeared in the New York Times Magazine 35 years ago titled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.”

John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, disagrees with Friedman. A self-described ardent libertarian, Mackey believes Friedman’s view is too narrow a description of his and many other businesses’ activities.

T.J. Rodgers, the founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, has been dubbed “one of America’s toughest bosses” by Fortune magazine. Rodgers argues that corporations add far more to society by maximizing “long-term shareholder value” than they do by donating time and money to charity.

In the Reason magazine debate, Mackey lays out his personal vision of the social responsibility of business. Friedman responds, as does Rodgers.

Read the entire debate at http://www.reason.com/0510/fe.mf.rethinking.shtml.