Friedman did not say that “greed is good”— that is a line from the 1987 movie “Wall Street”—but he did write a famous article in The New York Times in 1970: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits. That article has been called the inspiration for the greed-is-good excesses of activist investors who push companies to create shareholder value at all costs—and to the exclusion of all other considerations, including investing in employees and delivering value to customers.