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Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow. This colours every decision

by Jemm 4y ago

Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow. This colours every decision they make.

spaetzleesser 4y ago
It doesn't have to be like that. The focus on shareholders started sometime in the 80s.
- louthy 4y ago
  But it does have to be like that now. Because if you're not growing (not growing the bottom line), you're almost certainly losing market position to other companies that are chasing growth. If there was some group altruism that made all companies in a sector collectively say "ok, we're big enough now, let's hit pause", then companies could afford to be a bit more about being good for the sake of being good. This is obviously a pipedream though.
  - FractalHQ 4y ago
    Some anti trust laws with teeth would help move us in the right direction!
    - soSadm4n 4y ago
      Anti-trust aimed at individuals is called taxation. Being able to shelter wealth accumulation through loopholes that only benefit rich people asset classes is so obviously classist (and tacitly ageist against youth since it’s all old people calling these shots). Their ad and marketing budgets are basically to woo public opinion into belief billionaires should exist, however. Look at the Coinbase story; employee and investor wealth gone. CEO wealth intact. And society gains little to nothing net new from enriching that fraud.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        Employees did not lose the money they were paid for their labour. What employee wealth is gone?
        soSadm4n 4y ago
        Offers that got pulled, 18% who were laid off, compensation based on speculative value that’s gone, while the CEO walks away with a much more certain personal position. All for placing a logo adjacent to others engineering feats (unless the Csuite at Coinbase is secretly Satoshi Nakamoto). Billions locked up in deference to a handful of CEOs means less liquidity in the open market. Which is intentional, I understand; if dollar value collapses these guys might have to work to survive, and of course humans could no longer do the necessary trade of real things to stay alive and prosper if an arbitrary financier cannot claim an arbitrary % of economic activity thousands of miles away. Human agency is coupled to wishful thinking still. Which is understandable; we only just crossed the threshold of <50% of adults believing in higher powers. Was still 80% around 2000.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I may be misreading, but there are several non sequiturs there. Pulled offers suck, but no one owes anything before they sign a contract. There is a level of opportunity cost, but that's not the same thing. Signed offers are getting a month's salary I think, which again reduces it to opportunity cost rather than loss of wealth. People being laid off is not lost wealth. Speculative value is not wealth. "Billions locked up" requires an explanation. People with money generally invest it in assets or other companies. Who is locking up billions? Why? Is it a meaningful % of the total money supply?
- UmbertoNoEco 4y ago
  Not only that. More often than not "focusing on shareholders" just means, let's do the most sociopathic thing which will pump up the stock price in the short term, increase those year-end bonuses and allow the executives to move up within or outside. Long term consequences for the shareholders are not considered, you could just imagine what weight long-term consequences for society will have on their decisions.
- pid-1 4y ago
  AFAIK the history of modern corporations starts with the Dutch East India Company. I have a hard time believing things get better as we go back in time.
  - spaetzleesser 4y ago
    When I grew up it was an embarrassment for a company to lay off people. Nowadays executives get big bonuses for laying off people. Things have changed since sometime in the 1980s.
squarefoot 4y ago
No idea why you were downvoted, since although harsh your definition is exactly what psychologists would use to describe people showing no empathy for others. The problem however is not corporations behaving like that: they want profits above all else and act accordingly; the problem is that we give them the same or more rights than humans.
robertlagrant 4y ago
> Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow. That's not the definition of a sociopath.

by Jemm 4y ago

Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow. This colours every decision they make.

spaetzleesser 4y ago

It doesn't have to be like that. The focus on shareholders started sometime in the 80s.

louthy 4y ago
But it does have to be like that now. Because if you're not growing (not growing the bottom line), you're almost certainly losing market position to other companies that are chasing growth. If there was some group altruism that made all companies in a sector collectively say "ok, we're big enough now, let's hit pause", then companies could afford to be a bit more about being good for the sake of being good. This is obviously a pipedream though.
- FractalHQ 4y ago
  Some anti trust laws with teeth would help move us in the right direction!
  - soSadm4n 4y ago
    Anti-trust aimed at individuals is called taxation. Being able to shelter wealth accumulation through loopholes that only benefit rich people asset classes is so obviously classist (and tacitly ageist against youth since it’s all old people calling these shots). Their ad and marketing budgets are basically to woo public opinion into belief billionaires should exist, however. Look at the Coinbase story; employee and investor wealth gone. CEO wealth intact. And society gains little to nothing net new from enriching that fraud.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Employees did not lose the money they were paid for their labour. What employee wealth is gone?
      - soSadm4n 4y ago
        Offers that got pulled, 18% who were laid off, compensation based on speculative value that’s gone, while the CEO walks away with a much more certain personal position. All for placing a logo adjacent to others engineering feats (unless the Csuite at Coinbase is secretly Satoshi Nakamoto). Billions locked up in deference to a handful of CEOs means less liquidity in the open market. Which is intentional, I understand; if dollar value collapses these guys might have to work to survive, and of course humans could no longer do the necessary trade of real things to stay alive and prosper if an arbitrary financier cannot claim an arbitrary % of economic activity thousands of miles away. Human agency is coupled to wishful thinking still. Which is understandable; we only just crossed the threshold of <50% of adults believing in higher powers. Was still 80% around 2000.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I may be misreading, but there are several non sequiturs there. Pulled offers suck, but no one owes anything before they sign a contract. There is a level of opportunity cost, but that's not the same thing. Signed offers are getting a month's salary I think, which again reduces it to opportunity cost rather than loss of wealth. People being laid off is not lost wealth. Speculative value is not wealth. "Billions locked up" requires an explanation. People with money generally invest it in assets or other companies. Who is locking up billions? Why? Is it a meaningful % of the total money supply?
UmbertoNoEco 4y ago
Not only that. More often than not "focusing on shareholders" just means, let's do the most sociopathic thing which will pump up the stock price in the short term, increase those year-end bonuses and allow the executives to move up within or outside. Long term consequences for the shareholders are not considered, you could just imagine what weight long-term consequences for society will have on their decisions.
pid-1 4y ago
AFAIK the history of modern corporations starts with the Dutch East India Company. I have a hard time believing things get better as we go back in time.
- spaetzleesser 4y ago
  When I grew up it was an embarrassment for a company to lay off people. Nowadays executives get big bonuses for laying off people. Things have changed since sometime in the 1980s.

squarefoot 4y ago

No idea why you were downvoted, since although harsh your definition is exactly what psychologists would use to describe people showing no empathy for others. The problem however is not corporations behaving like that: they want profits above all else and act accordingly; the problem is that we give them the same or more rights than humans.

robertlagrant 4y ago

> Corporations are sociopaths by their very design. Their number one mandate is to make money for their shareholders and to grow. That's not the definition of a sociopath.