Funny how "taken out of context" is so often used when the context doesn't make it any better.

That whole "he is in effect imposing taxes" thing is ridiculous. Taxes are forcibly collected by the government, not voluntarily spent by a business. Businesses are not the military, executives are not obligated to follow orders. If the stockholders don't like what an executive does, they can fire the executive and hire someone else. An executive who wants to keep their job therefore might be wise to stick to what the stockholders will like. But they aren't doing anything wrong if they don't, any more than an employee is doing something wrong if they disobey their manager.

It also misses the idea that a lot of misbehavior by companies is stuff that's bad for the company, but they do it anyway because of stupidity, shortsightedness, coordination problems, or the incentives of decisionmakers not lining up with the consequences for the company they work for. Or rather, it doesn't miss the idea but explicitly dismisses it; anything that is actually good for the company is defined by Friedman as not being "social responsibility."