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Show Doesn't General Electric realize the days of enormous corporate profits are over? There was a time, fifty or sixty But if society profits and the busi- years ago, when a major corporation ness does not, the business will told in in America might expect profits of the short run. It will have no operat- twenty or even twenty-five cents on ing funds. , -n the sales dollar. How much- "-rj"r Those days are over. But not profit is enough to . everybody realizes it. keep a business t 7 , A ,, operating? How ' What would you call enormous? much is too much? .... Z. In 1970, Fortune's Top 500 indus- It's hard to say. "TV IK A trial corporations realized an average However, the 4 profit of about 4 cents on companies mak- ""tZJ . the dollar. ing only marginal y 4iG4xilJ General Electric fared profit are not thepl-L " TJ nlrX s'''' better than companies provid- AtJVIV average. Last year, ing new employment, creating new irfar-) V our profits amount- products or adding to man's scientific if ed to about 5 cents and technical knowledge. u in l) on tne dollar. Marginal companies are not the J AJ U I) ) vl e are occasin" ones making the important social con- fflkS. sfax V77 ally attacked, along tributions today. For a simple reason. JW$t uj 'yn business in They can't afford to. H iSndZ$ general, as being No responsible company wants a S3a&- "too profit-oriented." return to the days of the robber bar-People bar-People argue that if social progress ons. No responsible company wants is to be made, business must make it. "enormous" profits. But no company And that profits stand in the way of can survive without the profit system, social progress. We would argue quite the opposite. Why are we running this ad? The business of business is not just , .Ge.neral Electric is a big, techno-business. techno-business. local company, with the capabilities mi , . J 9 a great deal of problem solving The purpose of a busi- Vin this country ness, as we isee it is to pro- A We think profits have a direct duce and distribute fZ3 effect on ability to solve necessary goods and serv- Lfnfe problems. But we realize the is- ' jcestotheprofitofsociety JtSfl X Psue of 5 . . . and the business itself, f Ji 1 J sides. By telling you our side A business must re- Livj BnT WP bnno wV,-! 2 1 fleet society's needs. Eco- , SOLlU SinkaWv t0 nomie Dolitical lep-al tmnk aoutyour side. Perhaps nomic, ponticai legal , T -J&O even write us about it and moral, as well as AiUlw2)iZ. v wM t VUL1U , , -social. It must change as f e toJ?ear wha.t You society changes and, to ffCL2U GIPral vi Please write to some extent? influence ' OnfflM E1fctric' Dept- 901 those changes. B Timi' J$ GENERAL ELECTRIC |