When it was first published in The New York Times in 1970, Milton Friedman's "The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits" heralded a new way of thinking about the mission of a company and helped to shift Corporate America from a stakeholder vision of capitalism to one that gave shareholders pride of place. In this episode of the In-House Ethicist, John Paul Rollert looks at some of the central claims of Friedman's essay and situates it against the backdrop of the Cold War and fears about creeping socialism. He also explores how relevant Friedman's famous arguments are to a world where Mikhail Gorbachev and the Berlin Wall are now a distant memory.

Today, when we think of craft-based products, we tend to think of high end goods: Ferraris, Ferragamo shoes, and fine wines. But are the crafts merely reserved for the super wealthy, and what can we learn from the spirit of craftsmanship in a modern mechanized world? In this episode of the In-House Ethicist, John Paul Rollert takes up the modern legacy of craftsmanship as embodied in Oxxford clothes, a century-old Chicago based maker of high end, handmade men's garments. He also explores how craftsmanship has often been seen as an antidote to the unseemly elements of cheap goods and mechanized labor.

You don't need to be a card carrying communist to appreciate the familiar tension between employees and management, but what happens when your boss is an app? In this episode of the In-House Ethicist, John Paul Rollert explores the ways in which Uber has tried to perfect the art of app based management. He catalogues the ways in which the company nudges and controls its drivers and discusses how their efforts portend a world where management techniques will increasingly be automated.