36 ms·

> If you're going to interject yourself, as a company, into the political arena, you have to be all in otherwise you will get called out like this eventually.

> If you're going to interject yourself, as a company, into the political arena, you have to be all in otherwise you will get called out like this eventually. A company selectively interjecting itself into the political arena highlights its hypocrisy, but any company having a significant public impact should be getting called out regardless of their actions in other spheres. Ethics are not an opt-in.

notyourday 8y ago
How about American universities that educate people from KSA paid by KSA? Should they be called out for taking blood money? After all international students are basically the only ones that pay the full rack rate?
lmm 8y ago
Making yourself an ethical arbiter is opt-in; deciding to pursue profit within the constraints of a particular legal regime (or indeed a particular religion ethical doctrine) but otherwise apolitically is entirely legitimate, and I suspect makes one more likely to act in a genuinely good way than chasing the hot-button issues of the day.
wowzap 8y ago
Can't a company just do what's best for itself and it's shareholders? Why does every organization need a moral/ethical complex which caters to the issues of modern day?
- carapace 8y ago
  > Can't a company just do what's best for itself and it's shareholders? That's exactly what ethical behaviour is. > Why does every organization need a moral/ethical complex which caters to the issues of modern day? Because joining a corporation does not remove you from human society.
- Afforess 8y ago
  Companies exist to serve society, not the other way around. Corporate charters are granted by governments, from the people.
  - wowzap 8y ago
    Ok I'll bite, so if your company is based in Saudi Arabia you have to be okay with killing journalists because the charter was granted by the government?
    - guhidalg 8y ago
      Ok I’ll bite :) Does Saudi Arabia have centuries of free enterprise, civil rights progress, government accountability, and not-a-monarchy?
      - mdorazio 8y ago
        What does any of that have to do with the previous question?
        y4mi 8y ago
        The premises of the grandparent was > Corporate charters are granted by governments, from the people. This is true for the USA, at least afaict as an European. The same can't be said about Saudi Arabia, as sad as that might be.
    - simias 8y ago
      Well if you're a Saudi citizen and you don't have much of a choice then clearly no, it's just the way things are, you don't choose where you're born. If you're a foreigner and go out of your way to open a company in Saudi Arabia then clearly yes.
    - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
      I mean... you don't have to feel okay with it, but if you're paying taxes, you're certainly complicit in it on some level. Similar goes for Americans and the Iraq War. In the old days, in some countries, we had a device for changing the government when it did stuff you didn't want to be complicit in. I think they called it an "election" ;-). Now, admittedly, even if I take a very broad array of American political parties, from the Greens to the Libertarians, their spectrum on foreign policy still ranges from bloody-stupid to fucking appalling, so I don't entirely blame actively anti-war Americans for the anti-war movement's failure to stop the war. But that's because the democratic system has decayed to the point where, if you don't want today's fresh new war of choice, you're left choosing between two irrelevant third parties, one of whom puts forth a candidate who doesn't know where Aleppo is, and the other of whom are outright tankies on foreign policy and may be paid by Vladimir Putin.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Because people are involved. Edit: You can downvote all you want, but politics are an outgrowth of human interaction at scale. The idea that you can get a couple thousand human beings running around with limited resources and various goals and not get politics is laughable.
- justaguyhere 8y ago
  Companies like that do exist. Profit at any cost, under the disguise of "serving the shareholders" - everyone/everything else be damned. Recent examples include the pharma companies hiking the cost to whatever levels they please ... If everyone started behaving this way, it wouldn't be pretty.
- simias 8y ago
  If we follow your logic to its logical conclusion the only way to change the way a company is behaving is through laws and regulations. I'm getting strawman-adjacent here but something tells me that if you think that a company should only "do what's best for itself and it's shareholders" you might also not like heavy handed regulations either, am I correct? And if so, how do you think the problem of unethical companies should be solved?
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    By instituting only those regulations that loosely serve a public good (say a carbon tax or sin tax) and then predominantly by customers voting with their wallets.
    - root_axis 8y ago
      This is as good as saying nothing at all since nobody agrees on what serves the public good.
      - sokoloff 8y ago
        That's why we have a representative process to decide on a single course of action when not literally everyone agrees.
        root_axis 8y ago
        Yes, you have succinctly described the status quo. My point is that "only pass regulations that serve the public good" is vague to the point of being meaningless. That's akin to saying "cancel all the wasteful government programs" as an answer to the deficit.
        sokoloff 8y ago
        Ah, I now see the disconnect. 5 posts or so up, someone suggested strong, targeted, heavy-handed regulation as a cure/control for an unethical company. My "loosely serves the public good" was meant to suggest that instead you could target carbon or sin taxes, but you couldn't (read: ought not) target a specific company, say Exxon-Mobil or Philip Morris. IOW, broadly target the thing you want to reduce with policy, not the company that does the specific thing. I can see based on my text how you reduced it to a vague "pass smart laws", but I was trying to make a specific recommendation on how to do that, but then further leaving the majority of control for ethics to the choice of the consumers in aggregate.
- alehul 8y ago
  Many companies believe that catering to the issues of the modern day often is best for itself and its shareholders. Companies do seem to be taking more and more political stances, though, than they have in the past, and personally I think it's, at least in some cases, naive on their parts. I used to see more of "we'll donate 1% of our revenue to save pandas" type marketing, which is noble and universally applauded, but now it's replaced with taking political stances on things that are often hot-button issues.
- marcelluspye 8y ago
  "You mean I have to worry about the consequences of my actions? Why can't I just bury my head in the sand and make tons of money?" Plenty (most? all?) large businesses do this. It isn't good for the world.

notyourday 8y ago

How about American universities that educate people from KSA paid by KSA? Should they be called out for taking blood money? After all international students are basically the only ones that pay the full rack rate?

lmm 8y ago

Making yourself an ethical arbiter is opt-in; deciding to pursue profit within the constraints of a particular legal regime (or indeed a particular religion ethical doctrine) but otherwise apolitically is entirely legitimate, and I suspect makes one more likely to act in a genuinely good way than chasing the hot-button issues of the day.

wowzap 8y ago

Can't a company just do what's best for itself and it's shareholders? Why does every organization need a moral/ethical complex which caters to the issues of modern day?

carapace 8y ago
> Can't a company just do what's best for itself and it's shareholders? That's exactly what ethical behaviour is. > Why does every organization need a moral/ethical complex which caters to the issues of modern day? Because joining a corporation does not remove you from human society.
Afforess 8y ago
Companies exist to serve society, not the other way around. Corporate charters are granted by governments, from the people.
- wowzap 8y ago
  Ok I'll bite, so if your company is based in Saudi Arabia you have to be okay with killing journalists because the charter was granted by the government?
  - guhidalg 8y ago
    Ok I’ll bite :) Does Saudi Arabia have centuries of free enterprise, civil rights progress, government accountability, and not-a-monarchy?
    - mdorazio 8y ago
      What does any of that have to do with the previous question?
      - y4mi 8y ago
        The premises of the grandparent was > Corporate charters are granted by governments, from the people. This is true for the USA, at least afaict as an European. The same can't be said about Saudi Arabia, as sad as that might be.
  - simias 8y ago
    Well if you're a Saudi citizen and you don't have much of a choice then clearly no, it's just the way things are, you don't choose where you're born. If you're a foreigner and go out of your way to open a company in Saudi Arabia then clearly yes.
  - eli_gottlieb 8y ago
    I mean... you don't have to feel okay with it, but if you're paying taxes, you're certainly complicit in it on some level. Similar goes for Americans and the Iraq War. In the old days, in some countries, we had a device for changing the government when it did stuff you didn't want to be complicit in. I think they called it an "election" ;-). Now, admittedly, even if I take a very broad array of American political parties, from the Greens to the Libertarians, their spectrum on foreign policy still ranges from bloody-stupid to fucking appalling, so I don't entirely blame actively anti-war Americans for the anti-war movement's failure to stop the war. But that's because the democratic system has decayed to the point where, if you don't want today's fresh new war of choice, you're left choosing between two irrelevant third parties, one of whom puts forth a candidate who doesn't know where Aleppo is, and the other of whom are outright tankies on foreign policy and may be paid by Vladimir Putin.
village-idiot 8y ago
Because people are involved. Edit: You can downvote all you want, but politics are an outgrowth of human interaction at scale. The idea that you can get a couple thousand human beings running around with limited resources and various goals and not get politics is laughable.
justaguyhere 8y ago
Companies like that do exist. Profit at any cost, under the disguise of "serving the shareholders" - everyone/everything else be damned. Recent examples include the pharma companies hiking the cost to whatever levels they please ... If everyone started behaving this way, it wouldn't be pretty.
simias 8y ago
If we follow your logic to its logical conclusion the only way to change the way a company is behaving is through laws and regulations. I'm getting strawman-adjacent here but something tells me that if you think that a company should only "do what's best for itself and it's shareholders" you might also not like heavy handed regulations either, am I correct? And if so, how do you think the problem of unethical companies should be solved?
- sokoloff 8y ago
  By instituting only those regulations that loosely serve a public good (say a carbon tax or sin tax) and then predominantly by customers voting with their wallets.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    This is as good as saying nothing at all since nobody agrees on what serves the public good.
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      That's why we have a representative process to decide on a single course of action when not literally everyone agrees.
      - root_axis 8y ago
        Yes, you have succinctly described the status quo. My point is that "only pass regulations that serve the public good" is vague to the point of being meaningless. That's akin to saying "cancel all the wasteful government programs" as an answer to the deficit.
        sokoloff 8y ago
        Ah, I now see the disconnect. 5 posts or so up, someone suggested strong, targeted, heavy-handed regulation as a cure/control for an unethical company. My "loosely serves the public good" was meant to suggest that instead you could target carbon or sin taxes, but you couldn't (read: ought not) target a specific company, say Exxon-Mobil or Philip Morris. IOW, broadly target the thing you want to reduce with policy, not the company that does the specific thing. I can see based on my text how you reduced it to a vague "pass smart laws", but I was trying to make a specific recommendation on how to do that, but then further leaving the majority of control for ethics to the choice of the consumers in aggregate.
alehul 8y ago
Many companies believe that catering to the issues of the modern day often is best for itself and its shareholders. Companies do seem to be taking more and more political stances, though, than they have in the past, and personally I think it's, at least in some cases, naive on their parts. I used to see more of "we'll donate 1% of our revenue to save pandas" type marketing, which is noble and universally applauded, but now it's replaced with taking political stances on things that are often hot-button issues.
marcelluspye 8y ago
"You mean I have to worry about the consequences of my actions? Why can't I just bury my head in the sand and make tons of money?" Plenty (most? all?) large businesses do this. It isn't good for the world.