It is my view that market forces, broadly defined, can and should decide corporate behavior. These market forces could and should be reflected in new legislation, to the extent that the new legislation buffers the extremes of market forces. This is my personal political, macro economic, and ethical viewpoint. I believe there is support for such an opinion both in the theoretical and the practical world.
             This position is best explained by first establishing a definition of to whom corporations are legitimately responsible to. Toward this end I first define my view of corporate responsibility and then explain why, under the parameters I set, it is reasonable to believe the market can control corporate behavior with the aid of limited legislation in a fashion consistent with social responsibility. This is very close to the view Kenneth E. Goodpaster might espouse, as evidenced from his article in Business Ethics Quarterly when he said that "The basic normative principle is fiduciary responsibility (organizational prudence), supplemented by legal compliance." (Goodpaster, January 1991) I will later explain the subtle differences between Goodpaster's view and that of my own.
             Much like Milton Friedman and Elaine Sternberg, I believe corporations are socially responsible to stockholders. Milton Friedman's opinion was that "there is one and only one social responsibility of business-to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."( Friedman, 1970,) This is very similar to Elaine Sternberg's opinion that business is "ethical so long as they respect distributive justice and ordinary decency in their pursuit of maximum long-term owner value." (Sternberg, 2000 ) With respect to both these fine opinions I must split hairs an...