The late conservative economist Milton Friedman was an aggressive promoter of the “shareholder theory,” arguing that corporations’ main obligation was not to society on the whole, but to their shareholders. Friedman influenced many libertarians and neoliberal thinkers who equate a laissez-faire or hands-off approach to economics with personal freedom. But in an in-depth essay/think piece published by The Atlantic on April 24, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz challenges those beliefs and stresses that “unfettered” capitalism isn’t necessarily synonymous with freedom. “(Economist…
