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Thanks for taking the time to put all this down. I'm having a hard time figuring out if you're disagreeing with what I've said above or adding additional contex

by grzm 10y ago

Thanks for taking the time to put all this down. I'm having a hard time figuring out if you're disagreeing with what I've said above or adding additional context. In particular, I think I've been clear that one must still be "competitive" is something that needs to be taken into account. (That said, I can imagine a company put together with the explicit goal of "going out of business" when it's other, non-profit goals have been reached.) Indeed, I think implicit in what I've been saying is that going into business can (and probably should) include determinations of ethical behavior.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
And thank you for your thoughts as well. Your last sentence caps it; what I am saying is that there is a broken tool in the toolbox - we should be able to make profit an ethical value - as an estimator of how much good we do on the world - but because accounting practices don't isolate rents ( SFAIK ) from consumer surplus, then that makes profitability a shakier ethical metric. But yes - the ethics of a company are a serious part of the architecture. Good ethics are of self-interest even more than they are a collective good.