Pinto Madness Essay

In the essay “Pinto Madness,” by Mark Dowie an author of many books, reveals the corporate greed of the Ford Motor Company. The essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits,” by Milton Friedman, who in 1976 received the Nobel Prize in Economics, claims that “The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends,” (Friedman 157). In the 1970s, many people lost their lives from a flaw in the placement of the Pintos fuel tank. It was located behind the rear axle, instead of above it. Milton Friedman would approve of the Ford Motor Company conducts of executives as described by Dowie. “What …show more content…
Ford did just that. Ford Motor Company bought themselves time by continuously finding more things for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to look over. By doing so they obtained eight extra years to produce over 3 million cars of the unsafe Pinto. With that being said, in that time frame more and more lawsuits were building up against the Ford Motor Company (Dowie 152). Finally, in 1977 the government implemented Standard 301. Standard 301’s purpose is to reduce deaths and injuries occurring from fires that result from fuel spillage during and after motor vehicle crashes. With Standard 301 now in affect Ford had no choice but to fix the rupturing gas tank. The same year Standard 301 was implemented the Pinto finally passed a rear-end crash test. The reason for that was the one dollar, one-pound piece of plastic that became a standard feature on the 1977 Pinto model. Ford continued to profit from the unsafe Pintos that were built before 1977. Even though the newer models were now fixed there are still more than two million pre 1977 Pintos on the road that will cause 70 or more people to burn to death annually for the upcoming