Milton Freidman's Speech Analysis

Professor Milton Freidman begins his speech by posing two questions. Is America the land of opportunity where people from many backgrounds can live and work cooperatively together to pursue their own interests while maintaining their separate values? Or on the other hand, Is America no longer a land of individual promise, but a land of “growing bureaucracy and diminishing freedom”? Is it turning into a land of ethic separation vice a land of a melting pot? His lecture focuses on the achievements of the United States and the issues that he views America faces. Friedman speaks on how bad laws make unlawful activities socially worthwhile, and therefore creates situations where breaking the law is sometimes better for society at large. …show more content…
To begin with, Freidman discusses bad laws and the fact that they should be challenged and changed in an effort to make them flexible thus empowering businesses the ability to conduct their business successfully. There are some laws that are significant to the economy in protecting employees, bosses, wage laws, and free market. Government intervention in today’s markets and promoting free market and other practices need to be flexible enough to allow corporations to engage in free trade effectively. Another way he enables business ethics students to become a better leaders is that he encouraged us to have a greater understanding of how free market works. His “I Pencil example, provides us with the knowledge necessary to monitor how market prices to communicate to the corporation when the demand for a product increases and respond accordingly. Finally Friedman teaches that today’s business managers cannot micromanage their employee’s efforts down to every last detail. That this will bring any factory to an immediate work stoppage. Instead effective business managers will direct individuals in what they should do then give them the freedom and power to accomplish their work voluntarily to achieve the best