责任与逐利，孰是孰非？

“很少有哪种趋势，能像要求企业管理者去接受社会责任，而不是为股东尽可能多地赚钱那样，动摇我们这个自由社会的根基。”

以上摘自诺贝尔经济学奖得主弗里德曼1962年出版的《资本主义和自由》一书。他在书中倡导限制政府的权力，解除对市场的约束。弗里德曼的思想整整影响了三代人。弗里德曼的担忧是务实的，也是有原则的：“如果商人真的有除了为股东创造最大利润之外的其他社会责任，他们是怎么知道这些社会责任是什么的？具有自我选择倾向的个人能决定社会的利益是什么吗？他们能决定他们为自己和股东选择的社会责任能够服从于社会利益吗？”

弗里德曼几十年前的这一串发问，直至今天仍值得我们深思，尤其是这些问题直至今天还在造成社会的分裂。围绕这些问题，人们就企业应在自由市场上扮演什么角色激辩不休——资本主义是否应像很多人主张的那样，做到“正义”和“自觉”？还是应该专注于追逐利润？

《财富》的意见是，这个矛盾其实是个伪命题，至少这种争论是不必要的。企业在雄心勃勃地追逐自己的商业目标的过程中，往往已经为社会整体福祉做出了贡献。这种努力对企业的自身运营是件好事，对股东也是如此。为了更好地阐述这一事实，我们连续第四年评选了几十家公司，编制了一份“改变世界”排行榜。比如希尔顿集团在过去10年间，通过降低能耗和废水，节省了10亿美元的成本。目前，希尔顿酒店集团仍在快速扩张，但归功于它在可持续发展项目上的努力，它的每平方米平均碳排放已经比2008年下降了30%以上。

希尔顿集团的例子也回答了弗里德曼的第一个问题。在希尔顿动工兴建每一幢酒店大楼时，在公司决定是否继续在酒店大堂提供免费咖啡和甜甜圈时，“具有自我选择倾向的个人”（即公司高管）的确做出了“怎样做才符合社会利益”的判断。但这些商业决策并未损害公司的业务。2017年，希尔顿酒店的住客人数还比上年增长了1000万人次。

值得注意的是，在此过程中，希尔顿的股东也是获益者。去年希尔顿的股价上涨23%，超过了标普500的平均水平（16%）。而且自希尔顿自2013年上市以来，它的股市表现连年稳步跑赢大盘。

美国超市连锁巨头克罗格（Kroger）近年来致力于削减食物浪费和为贫困人口提供食物。与此同时，克罗格的股东也获益颇丰。该公司的股价去年上涨了27%。从2013年起，美国银行通过发行所谓“绿色债券”，向低碳环保企业提供融资，其股价去年上升了28%。过去三年，其股票收益达到标普500平均值的2倍。

此外还有我们熟悉的阿迪达斯。它从海洋里回收塑料垃圾，并把它们制成200美元一双的运动鞋。（这也是一笔好生意。）过去三年，阿迪达斯的股票平均每年上涨44%之多。

在以上每个案例中，这些企业都做了伟大的企业才会做的事——满足了市场的某个未被满足的需求，并由此赚钱。你千万不要以为他们在做慈善（虽说这些企业有时也做慈善），这并非慈善，而是正儿八经、根正苗红的资本主义。然而在解决问题上，这一套确实是有效的。

当然，资本主义还存在许多棘手的问题。比如钴的开采利用问题就应引起企业的警惕——钴是一种用于锂电池的关键金属，智能手机、电动汽车都用得着它。薇芙·沃尔特在一份名叫《血汗与电池》的特别报告中直截了当地指出：钴的开采成本，往往被转嫁到世界上一些最贫穷的国家和人民身上。

或许有了正确的商业模式，我们也能改变这种现状。（财富中文网）

注：本文的另一版本以《利润与进步》为题，刊载于2018年9月1日刊的《财富》杂志上。

译者：朴成奎

FEW TRENDS COULD SO THOROUGHLY UNDERMINE the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.”

So wrote the late Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman in Capitalism and Freedom, his 1962 paean to limited government and unfettered markets, which has influenced some three generations of readers and counting. Friedman’s concerns, it seems, were pragmatic as well as principled: “If businessmen do have a social responsibility other than making maximum profits for stockholders,” he asked, “how are they to know what it is? Can self-selected private individuals decide what the social interest is? Can they decide how great a burden they are justified in placing on themselves or their stockholders to serve that social interest?”

Such questions, posed decades ago, are worth pondering—in large part because they continue to divide people today. They are at the very center of the great debate over what role companies should play in our free-market society: Should capitalism be “just” or “conscious,” as many contend … or should its aim be just the conscious pursuit of profit?

At Fortune, we’ve concluded that trade-off is a false one, or at least unnecessary. Companies can and often do serve the social good by ambitiously pursuing their business objectives; indeed, such efforts can be a boon to their operations, and ultimately to shareholders as well. To illustrate this fact, for the fourth straight year, we’ve highlighted dozens of such companies in our Change the World list. Consider Hilton, which has shaved a billion dollars in costs over the past decade by reducing its energy and water waste. The fast-expanding hotel chain now generates 30% less carbon emissions on a square-foot basis than it did in 2008, thanks to its aggressive sustainability program.

To answer one of Friedman’s questions, “self-selected private individuals” (also known as corporate executives) did make a judgment as to what the social interest might be in this endeavor—just as they determined where to break ground on each new hotel property or whether to serve free coffee and doughnuts in the lobby. And all of these collective business decisions haven’t seemed to hurt business any. The chain had 10 million more guests in 2017 than in the year before.

Hilton shareholders, it’s worth noting, have gotten an upgrade too. The stock is up 23% over the past year compared with the S&P 500’s gain of 16%, and shares have outpaced the market since Hilton’s IPO in 2013.

Supermarket chain Kroger is simultaneously working to eliminate food waste and feed the hungry, while its shareholders get fat: The stock is up 27% over the past year. Bank of America is helping to finance earth-friendly, low-carbon businesses through so-called green bonds—a market it all but created in 2013. Shares are up 28% over the past year, and the stock’s returns have been twice as good as the S&P’s over the past three.

Then there’s Adidas, which is recovering plastic from the oceans and converting them into chic $200 shoes. (Hey, it’s a business.) And that stock, by the way, is up an annualized 44% over the past three years running.

In each case, these businesses are doing what great businesses do: meeting an unmet need and making money doing it. Don’t get fooled into thinking this is charity (though these companies do some of that as well). No, this is good, old-fashioned capitalism. When it comes to problem solving, it just works.

Plenty of seemingly intractable problems remain, of course. One of those involves cobalt, a key mineral in the lithium-ion batteries that power our ubiquitous smartphones, electric vehicles, and more. As Viv Walt writes in her unflinching special report, “Blood, Sweat, and Batteries,” the cost of mining that cobalt is often paid by some of the poorest people in the world.

Perhaps with the right business model, we can change that too.

A version of this article appears in the September 1, 2018 issue of Fortune with the headline “Profit For Progress.”