Wal-Mart and Corporate Social ResponsibilityThe Wal-Mart Corporation is a multibillion-dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6,400 stores and 1 .8 million sales people worldwide. Wal-Mart's influence on the world of retail and the enormity of its corporate size are unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report revenue of $312.4 billion per fiscal quarter and net income of $3.8 billion. Wal-Mart promises its customers "Always Low Prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by offering low prices to its customers and a high return on investment to its shareholders. One way Wal-Mart was able to maintain a competitive advantage over other low-cost retail giants and provide low prices was by cutting wages and not offering too many company benefits to its employees. Full-time employees working at Wal-Mart earn just $8 an hour, while only 45% of workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increased part-time employees by 20% to 40% so that it would not have to cover all employees for health insurance. While Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to its employees, it successfully functions as a legitimate company operating in a capitalist society. Wal-Mart upholds a primary fiduciary duty to satisfy its shareholders and follows the model of free-market libertarianism, which states that a company should not interfere with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to its major shareholders rather than to a company's employees. According to the philosopher Milton Friedman, the only corporate social responsibility that a company has is to increase profits for its shareholders. Through a utilitarian perspective, we can see that Wal-Mart acts in a way that produces the greatest possible balance between good and dissatisfaction for its shareholders. Wal-Mart maintains fiduciary duties to its shareholders by not increasing the wages of its employees, but instead takes the sum of money and returns it to its shareholders and stockholders as customers and suppliers. Wal-Mart creates happiness due to the amount of people who invest in the company. Ethics is about the consequences of an action, and the consequence of Wal-Mart's actions creates the greatest amount of good for the people who are the major shareholders of the company. We can argue that Wal-Mart's pursuit of profit does not lead to the greatest collective good for society because many small business owners and Wal-Mart employees are forced to file for bankruptcy.