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vice that is an 'intrinsic good' due to its benefits for society. In return for performing their practice, professionals receive 'extrinsic goods' such as a substantial income and social esteem. (23) Professionals' occupations, then, are both public and private, both callings and careers. (24) Professionals are expected to act for the good of those they serve. Moreover, as professionals, they belong to public organizations in which ethics and standards are articulated through ongoing discourse among colleagues. These standards are enforced by the professional organization and the states through institutions such as licensing boards.

Business managers do not, for the most part, claim to be professionals, although they increasingly participate in advanced education and quasi-professional organizations. Whereas managers have traditionally been responsible as agents protecting stockholders' monetary interests in their firms, today there is widespread discussion about realigning managers' responsibilities to accord not only with stockholders' interests, but also with those of other stakeholders — employees, customers, suppliers, and the general public. That is, the purpose of the corporation has been under discussion by business educators and ethicists, and the responsibility of managers has been a central element in that discussion. If it is through firms that business performs necessary social practices, then stakeholders make investments in important social institutions: workers invest their time and talent, customers their money and safety, neighbors their tax proceeds, and stockholders their capital. For managers to serve the interests of one group of stakeholders alone is to fail to respect and reward the contribution of all the others. Managers have the public or professional obligation to deal fairly with each stake-holder group as well as the encompassing duty of coordinating the firm itself because it is of vital interest to a great many people. (25)

The modern business firm would, on this view of public action, become a space within which groups of stakeholders form and act together both to serve the public good and their own best interests. Managers would then truly be leaders, for they would be public actors rather than merely private agents. (26) In a truly public firm, worklife would not be alienating or degrading because it would have a publicly recognized, respected purpose. Workers would no longer fear for their jobs due to ruthless cutting of overhead; they would be partners with a voice in the firm's decisions and a duty to improve and apply their skills. The workplace would become a public space with reciprocal responsibility and cooperative effort grounded in the public attitudes of all working there. In this brief paper, I have not depicted political action in any traditional sense, but a genuinely public form of action as it would be performed by people in business intent upon enriching their world and their lives through their work.

Notes

(1) See especially Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1980); Milton Friedman, 'The Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits,' New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970, reprinted in Thomas Donaldson and Patricia H. Werhane, eds., Ethical Issues in Business: