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>You're right. The real motivation is always making money for the executives and board-members. What sort of mindset must one have to assume that once a person

>You're right. The real motivation is always making money for the executives and board-members. What sort of mindset must one have to assume that once a person becomes a "manager" or "executive" they are suddenly immoral or evil? Such an odd worldview. I guarantee no one at Boeing make the conscious effort to kill hundreds of people for a bonus. Mistakes happen. People of all standing are corrupt. We fix the issues and move on, not cry about executives, board members and shareholders (of which most people on this board are striving to be).

linuxftw 7y ago
I don't need an armchair assessment of my worldview, thanks. It's well known that large US companies offer perverse incentives for their executives. As long as they don't do anything super illegal, there's often no recourse. I mean, recent history is replete with examples of executives optimizing-for-bonus.
bluntfang 7y ago
>What sort of mindset must one have to assume that once a person becomes a "manager" or "executive" they are suddenly immoral or evil? Such an odd worldview. Becoming an executive at a publicly traded company is a joyous and public acceptance of capitalism. Capitalism is objectively bad, given the state of the world.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  Capitalism is nothing more than the free exchange among willing parties and cannot be objectively bad. If Boeing can put out faulty products that kill people will no recourse, that's not capitalism, that's the government allowing these criminals to continue operating unchecked.
  - throwanem 7y ago
    It's a poor definition of capitalism that equally well describes barter and gift economy.
  - freeopinion 7y ago
    That's also consumers accepting the risk and agreeing to pay for a flight. Here's a quick thought experiment in capitalism: Two relatively new Boeing 737-MAX airplanes crash in relatively quick succession. A critical flaw in the aircraft is exposed to the public. Significant numbers of people refuse to fly in a 737-MAX. Southwest made a substantial investment in 737-MAX airplanes, and cannot make their money back. They approach Boeing and Boeing gives them a 75% discount on a 737-MAX replacement. Or, Boeing shrugs their shoulders and says, "huh". Southwest cancels all future orders with Boeing and buys Airbus. Or, Boeing waves their hands and says, "We fixed everything. The 737-MAX is perfectly safe now." The next week, Southwest relaunches their fleet and books 100% occupancy. They negotiate with Boeing about the $millions lost while the fleet was grounded and get back to business as usual. For the next 5 years, a 737-MAX crashes every year killing everyone aboard, but bookings stay high. All ticket prices go up $25 to fund the payouts to crash victims. Bookings stay high. Business continues as usual. See all the very different directions capitalism can take you? I continually struggle to understand the mindset where all blame goes to the government and there is no individual responsibility for consumer choices. We've seen it over and over with Wells Fargo, GM, Facebook, and the list goes on. Government can serve a meaningful purpose in the regulation of capitalism. But also, capitalism can and must serve a critical role in the regulation of capitalism.
magduf 7y ago
Sociopaths are highly overrepresented among corporate executives. No, people don't suddenly become evil and amoral when they become an executive; evil and amoral people are simply more likely to reach those positions, precisely because they're evil and amoral.
toss1 7y ago
You have the cause and effect backwards. I have had the opportunity to observe a very wide variety of businesses in several industries and have noticed the same thing as multiple studies - a high degree of sociopathy among execs. My conjecture is that this is both because aggressive sociopathy will help people rise among the ranks, and also because the structure of business will tend to actively select for those traits (unless active counter-selection is implemented). So, sure, one does not automatically change by becoming a manager (although there are psych studies indicating high income causing reduced compassion for others), but there is good reason to expect higher "immoral or evil" behavior in higher ranks.
- Rescis 7y ago
  Im curious about the study that shows the causation of lowered compassion with higher income?
  - toss1 7y ago
    Here's a couple articles referencing some of the studies https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce... https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/10/2016/wealth-can-make-us-selfish-and-stingy-two-psychologists-explain-why https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/10/2016/wealth-c...
cmiles74 7y ago
In my opinion, one of the important qualities of an organized company is to spread and dilute responsibility. No individual manager or executive needs to be immoral or evil, they need only be short-sighted or a little greedy or willing to keep their head down and toe the company line. Each person is only responsible for their own bad decisions. It's likely there is no one person who signed the memo that said "casualties totally okay, make more money!" Instead we'll find several people signing off on several bad decisions, each person myopic enough to be able to honestly claim they had no idea something this bad could happen. It would be nice to see the buck stop at, say, the CEO, but I haven't seen that happen. In many cases the CEO will claim that they gave blanket performance goals and that the execution of those goals was too technical for them to actually understand, or that those technical details were hidden from them by people below them who were trying to hide things (rather than only deliver the type of information the CEO really wanted).

linuxftw 7y ago

I don't need an armchair assessment of my worldview, thanks. It's well known that large US companies offer perverse incentives for their executives. As long as they don't do anything super illegal, there's often no recourse. I mean, recent history is replete with examples of executives optimizing-for-bonus.

bluntfang 7y ago

>What sort of mindset must one have to assume that once a person becomes a "manager" or "executive" they are suddenly immoral or evil? Such an odd worldview. Becoming an executive at a publicly traded company is a joyous and public acceptance of capitalism. Capitalism is objectively bad, given the state of the world.

linuxftw 7y ago
Capitalism is nothing more than the free exchange among willing parties and cannot be objectively bad. If Boeing can put out faulty products that kill people will no recourse, that's not capitalism, that's the government allowing these criminals to continue operating unchecked.
- throwanem 7y ago
  It's a poor definition of capitalism that equally well describes barter and gift economy.
- freeopinion 7y ago
  That's also consumers accepting the risk and agreeing to pay for a flight. Here's a quick thought experiment in capitalism: Two relatively new Boeing 737-MAX airplanes crash in relatively quick succession. A critical flaw in the aircraft is exposed to the public. Significant numbers of people refuse to fly in a 737-MAX. Southwest made a substantial investment in 737-MAX airplanes, and cannot make their money back. They approach Boeing and Boeing gives them a 75% discount on a 737-MAX replacement. Or, Boeing shrugs their shoulders and says, "huh". Southwest cancels all future orders with Boeing and buys Airbus. Or, Boeing waves their hands and says, "We fixed everything. The 737-MAX is perfectly safe now." The next week, Southwest relaunches their fleet and books 100% occupancy. They negotiate with Boeing about the $millions lost while the fleet was grounded and get back to business as usual. For the next 5 years, a 737-MAX crashes every year killing everyone aboard, but bookings stay high. All ticket prices go up $25 to fund the payouts to crash victims. Bookings stay high. Business continues as usual. See all the very different directions capitalism can take you? I continually struggle to understand the mindset where all blame goes to the government and there is no individual responsibility for consumer choices. We've seen it over and over with Wells Fargo, GM, Facebook, and the list goes on. Government can serve a meaningful purpose in the regulation of capitalism. But also, capitalism can and must serve a critical role in the regulation of capitalism.

magduf 7y ago

Sociopaths are highly overrepresented among corporate executives. No, people don't suddenly become evil and amoral when they become an executive; evil and amoral people are simply more likely to reach those positions, precisely because they're evil and amoral.

toss1 7y ago

You have the cause and effect backwards. I have had the opportunity to observe a very wide variety of businesses in several industries and have noticed the same thing as multiple studies - a high degree of sociopathy among execs. My conjecture is that this is both because aggressive sociopathy will help people rise among the ranks, and also because the structure of business will tend to actively select for those traits (unless active counter-selection is implemented). So, sure, one does not automatically change by becoming a manager (although there are psych studies indicating high income causing reduced compassion for others), but there is good reason to expect higher "immoral or evil" behavior in higher ranks.

Rescis 7y ago
Im curious about the study that shows the causation of lowered compassion with higher income?
- toss1 7y ago
  Here's a couple articles referencing some of the studies https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce... https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/10/2016/wealth-can-make-us-selfish-and-stingy-two-psychologists-explain-why https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/10/2016/wealth-c...

cmiles74 7y ago

In my opinion, one of the important qualities of an organized company is to spread and dilute responsibility. No individual manager or executive needs to be immoral or evil, they need only be short-sighted or a little greedy or willing to keep their head down and toe the company line. Each person is only responsible for their own bad decisions. It's likely there is no one person who signed the memo that said "casualties totally okay, make more money!" Instead we'll find several people signing off on several bad decisions, each person myopic enough to be able to honestly claim they had no idea something this bad could happen. It would be nice to see the buck stop at, say, the CEO, but I haven't seen that happen. In many cases the CEO will claim that they gave blanket performance goals and that the execution of those goals was too technical for them to actually understand, or that those technical details were hidden from them by people below them who were trying to hide things (rather than only deliver the type of information the CEO really wanted).