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> ...and the profit is merely a necessary condition for achieving it. Well, yes, exactly. Say you are a person. You have a goal to make {thing}. You achieve th

> ...and the profit is merely a necessary condition for achieving it. Well, yes, exactly. Say you are a person. You have a goal to make {thing}. You achieve that goal by selling {thing}. To aid in this task under the economic system you live within, you create a legal entity, called a company. Your aim is still to achieve your goal. The aim of the company is to help with that. The profit is a necessary condition, as you say. I'm not sure how you can write that and then disagree. This is a basic fundamental thing, like 1+1 is 2. If profit is the necessary condition to acheive {goal} and a company is the legal vehicle by which you attempt to achieve {goal}, then the aim of the company has to be increase profit, there isn't a choice. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just a thing. There will be other primary and ancillary aims, but the core reason for its existence is for that aim. > But you only have to look around to see that the vast majority of people who both run companies and who work for them are not in it to maximize profit. Yes, that's what I said re workers, and sure, it can apply to many smaller business owners. As you go up the ladder in company size from small business I would strongly disagree that the people running the companies are not there to maximise profit: appointments are very often explicitly made for financial reasons. > The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make. Right, but the ones who are the original subject are not small to medium sized businesses, and they either are not heavily constrained by this, or actively lobby to remove restrictions that do constrain them.

zepto 6y ago
“I'm not sure how you can write that and then disagree.” Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food. > I would strongly disagree that the people running the companies are not there to maximise profit: appointments are very often explicitly made for financial reasons. Granted this is sometimes true, but you are just leaving out the fact that in order to increase profit, the business generally has to offer more value too. There are exceptions to this, but it is generally true. And when they stop adding value or fall behind, unless there is a true monopoly which none of the tech companies have, they become vulnerable to competition. > > The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make. > Right, but the ones who are the original subject are not small to medium sized businesses, and they either are not heavily constrained by this, or actively lobby to remove restrictions that do constrain them. This is just affirming the consequent again, making the assumption that these business all have maximizing profit as their primary goal and that the only reason they haven’t grown giant is constraints. But the elephant in the room is that if profit were the only motive, nobody would bother to start businesses in fields that aren’t very profitable. The fact that they do, is an existence proof that people run businesses for reasons other than profit maximization.
- RobertKerans 6y ago
  > Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food. Similarly, if you build a machine to assist humans in consuming food you don't say the point of the machine is something other than assisting them in consuming food. > But the elephant in the room is that if profit were the only motive, nobody would bother to start businesses in fields that aren’t very profitable. The fact that they do, is an existence proof that people run businesses for reasons other than profit maximization. Right, but that seems to be missing the point. Which is that the business itself, seperate from the personal goals of the owners and employees, as an entity, has to attempt to maximise profit [because of the economic system it exists within] to enable the goals of the owners and employees. And further to that, if (and I've never said that it isn't an if) that becomes a driving factor, it subsumes the personal goals. For a business to grow to the level talked about, maximising profit has to be the driving force. Edit: > This is just affirming the consequent again, making the assumption that these business all have maximizing profit as their primary goal and that the only reason they haven’t grown giant is constraints. Nono, these businesses are giant. They have grown giant, that's what this was all primarily regarding.

zepto 6y ago

“I'm not sure how you can write that and then disagree.” Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food. > I would strongly disagree that the people running the companies are not there to maximise profit: appointments are very often explicitly made for financial reasons. Granted this is sometimes true, but you are just leaving out the fact that in order to increase profit, the business generally has to offer more value too. There are exceptions to this, but it is generally true. And when they stop adding value or fall behind, unless there is a true monopoly which none of the tech companies have, they become vulnerable to competition. > > The vast majority of companies in a capitalist system are small to medium sized businesses that are constrained in how much money they can ever make. > Right, but the ones who are the original subject are not small to medium sized businesses, and they either are not heavily constrained by this, or actively lobby to remove restrictions that do constrain them. This is just affirming the consequent again, making the assumption that these business all have maximizing profit as their primary goal and that the only reason they haven’t grown giant is constraints. But the elephant in the room is that if profit were the only motive, nobody would bother to start businesses in fields that aren’t very profitable. The fact that they do, is an existence proof that people run businesses for reasons other than profit maximization.

RobertKerans 6y ago
> Easily - it’s like saying “Consuming food is a necessary condition for human life”. That doesn’t mean all human activity reduces to eating food. Similarly, if you build a machine to assist humans in consuming food you don't say the point of the machine is something other than assisting them in consuming food. > But the elephant in the room is that if profit were the only motive, nobody would bother to start businesses in fields that aren’t very profitable. The fact that they do, is an existence proof that people run businesses for reasons other than profit maximization. Right, but that seems to be missing the point. Which is that the business itself, seperate from the personal goals of the owners and employees, as an entity, has to attempt to maximise profit [because of the economic system it exists within] to enable the goals of the owners and employees. And further to that, if (and I've never said that it isn't an if) that becomes a driving factor, it subsumes the personal goals. For a business to grow to the level talked about, maximising profit has to be the driving force. Edit: > This is just affirming the consequent again, making the assumption that these business all have maximizing profit as their primary goal and that the only reason they haven’t grown giant is constraints. Nono, these businesses are giant. They have grown giant, that's what this was all primarily regarding.