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> Or, would we prefer a society wherein we give social license to all corporations to behave like blatantly psychotic entities--whose only goal is profit I wou

by xtian 10y ago

> Or, would we prefer a society wherein we give social license to all corporations to behave like blatantly psychotic entities--whose only goal is profit I would prefer a society where we all accept that this is the only thing corporations are capable of being and then structure the legal systems in which they operate to ensure that their actions don't contradict "the greater good". "Psychotic entities whose only goal is profit" will do fine in any environment, despite lamentations to the contrary. The PR incentives you're talking about only incentivize companies to look like they're doing nice things. Sometimes the easiest way to achieve that goal is to actually do nice things, but not always.

cloverich 10y ago
(Thought experiment) I think its easier to frame what that legal structure should be if we agree on what Profit actually means. If I define profit as: Provide goods and / or services people want in a sustainable fashion -- does that impact the story? E.g. if its not profitable (generally), is it sustainable? (I think no). But the converse is clearly not true as profits can be sought at the expense of something less obvious (say, environment).
- xtian 10y ago
  Profit is the accumulation of capital. What you've described is a way of pursuing profit. Outside of economics, I think the word "profit" is meaningless. As you've demonstrated, however, there are two conflicting senses of the word "sustainable". Sustainability for a business means that it accumulates more capital than it expends. Sustainability for human beings is a much fuzzier notion that is tied up in the idea of health: the health of the individual, of our species, and of our environment. We can sacrifice health from these areas to reach different goals, but if our actions continuously deplete it, then they aren't sustainable. Is it possible to express the human sense of sustainability systematically? I'm not convinced it is, as I think it requires vision and sensitivity to understand health. So I think we need a legal structure which is sensitive in this way in order to create a sustainable society.
unclebucknasty 10y ago
>and then structure the legal systems in which they operate to ensure that their actions don't contradict "the greater good Ideally, sure, that sounds great. But it has, thus far, proven to be unworkable. The drive for profit supersedes virtually all else, and much "not good" has been done for that cause. Worse, there has been little to no recompense, even when the public good has been harmed egregiously. In spite of this, even now, a major ideology says that we need to roll-back what regulations there are. The political and economic climate don't currently exist to implement what you advocate, but, I do think it's a worthwhile effort. In the meantime, I don't see the downside to encouraging companies to be more socially-oriented, and rewarding those that actually are.

by xtian 10y ago

cloverich 10y ago

(Thought experiment) I think its easier to frame what that legal structure should be if we agree on what Profit actually means. If I define profit as: Provide goods and / or services people want in a sustainable fashion -- does that impact the story? E.g. if its not profitable (generally), is it sustainable? (I think no). But the converse is clearly not true as profits can be sought at the expense of something less obvious (say, environment).

xtian 10y ago
Profit is the accumulation of capital. What you've described is a way of pursuing profit. Outside of economics, I think the word "profit" is meaningless. As you've demonstrated, however, there are two conflicting senses of the word "sustainable". Sustainability for a business means that it accumulates more capital than it expends. Sustainability for human beings is a much fuzzier notion that is tied up in the idea of health: the health of the individual, of our species, and of our environment. We can sacrifice health from these areas to reach different goals, but if our actions continuously deplete it, then they aren't sustainable. Is it possible to express the human sense of sustainability systematically? I'm not convinced it is, as I think it requires vision and sensitivity to understand health. So I think we need a legal structure which is sensitive in this way in order to create a sustainable society.

unclebucknasty 10y ago

>and then structure the legal systems in which they operate to ensure that their actions don't contradict "the greater good Ideally, sure, that sounds great. But it has, thus far, proven to be unworkable. The drive for profit supersedes virtually all else, and much "not good" has been done for that cause. Worse, there has been little to no recompense, even when the public good has been harmed egregiously. In spite of this, even now, a major ideology says that we need to roll-back what regulations there are. The political and economic climate don't currently exist to implement what you advocate, but, I do think it's a worthwhile effort. In the meantime, I don't see the downside to encouraging companies to be more socially-oriented, and rewarding those that actually are.