Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Louisiana Law Review
Abstract
In 2021, the New Republic published an article entitled The End of Friedmanomics that described the rise and fall of the influence of 1976 Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman.1 Most recall Friedman’s normative shareholder primacy theory, which posited that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits and maximize returns to shareholders; most forget that Friedman heaped particular scorn on the precursor to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), the doctrine of social responsibility, calling it a “‘fundamentally subversive doctrine’ in a free society.”2 Despite Friedman’s opinion on corporate social responsibility (CSR), many have expressed strong reservations regarding his version of shareholder capitalism.3 This brief Article will consider the roots and longevity of ESG-related concepts among scholars and in the public discourse, the similarly persistent resistance thereto, and the importance of regularization-standardization of ESG norms.
Publication Date
Summer 2024
Recommended Citation
Jacobs, Becky L., "From CSR and TBL to ESG and the SDGs: Roots from Resistance to Regularization" (2024). Scholarly Works. 1027.
https://ir.law.utk.edu/utklaw_facpubs/1027