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This is a much more civilized response than my initial reaction, which was "go fuck yourself, mhartl". The reason for that indignation was, as you pointed out,

by alexqgb 15y ago

This is a much more civilized response than my initial reaction, which was "go fuck yourself, mhartl". The reason for that indignation was, as you pointed out, the obvious truth that without society's extension of limited legal liability, there would be no business in the first place - or, at least, not one with the scale and structure of a publicly traded company. And no, society does not grant this liability protection for free. Nor does it expect to get the short end of the deal. It has a stake in the outcome, and it expects that stake to be rewarded - no less than an investor expects a return on his capital. mhartl's implication that "only shareholders have any legitimate interest" represents a trifecta of ignorance (of the law) ingratitude (for what it grants) and arrogance (in assuming that his counter-party is irrelevant). It is supremely egocentric and inevitably destructive. You see the same warped sense of self expressed by people who go around saying "I'm a job creator" as though they were god-like individuals who combined - in a single person - holy trinity of supply, demand, and the ability to connect them that comprise any given job. In reality, jobs - like economic growth - are a product of several interactions that create a favorable situation for employment. No one person or organization controls all of them, or even (in most cases) a majority of them. What these "job creators" can safely say is "I hire and fire." That's a much more honest description, and one that clearly implies the existence of factors outside their control about which they simply make judgements. Their role is good and necessary, but it is not creative in the sense of having invented, built, or authored a thing. More importantly, people who hire and fire well (aka "managers") are acutely aware of the broader milieu in which they operate, the extent to which they depend on it, and the degree to which their own well-being depends on the health of those around them. Obliviousness to this vital interdependency remains deeply stupid. And unlike a temporary impairment (e.g. getting very drunk) or a moral impairment (e.g. a propensity to steal), the ethical blindness it represents is not something that the people who have it are usually aware of. Nor is it something about which they can easily be made aware. They simply lack the frame of reference needed to understand what they lack. Just consider colorblindness; a person who cannot see a limited part of the spectrum can still grasp the idea of color, and can make allowances for what they can't detect directly. But a person who has no sense of color whatsoever has no point of reference they can use to grasp even the idea of color. When it comes to responsibility, people like mhartl fall into the latter camp. Their minds simply cannot process the idea of social reciprocity. That is to say, they have no real ethics. In extreme cases, this makes them properly sociopathic. If you find yourself working with a person like this, distance yourself as soon as possible. They are dangerous, entirely self-serving, and prolonged exposure will get you hurt.

notahacker 15y ago
The original argument was against facile generations like "businesses ought to maximise shareholder value" and "businesses ought to aim to create more customers, which the author quite reasonably pointed out didn't apply to his own business ventures. If anything, it's a criticism of "sociopathic" maxims like Milton Friedman's infamous "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits": the implication is that other objectives like paying himself a higher salary, working less, giving his books away for free on the internet to help everyone learn Rails or aiming for abstract "socially responsible" goals need not be subordinate to supposedly universal business imperatives of growing profits or customer bases. The ethical implications of limited liability laws (one ought not to take credit one has no expectation of repaying; one ought not to mislead investors) are a tangential issue; a list of things an owner ought not to do with their business (see also: sell crack to kids, sexually harass staff, murder competitors) can happily exist in the absence of some overriding objective business owners ought to follow.
bricestacey 15y ago
I think you may have valid criticisms, but were out of line to call mhartl a man of "no real ethics, a sociopath, dangerous, self-serving, and someone to distance yourself from." I have only exchanged emails briefly, regarding his book, and he is nothing short of an honest, well-intentioned, and generous man. Let's avoid the attacks and keep the conversation civil.
- alexqgb 15y ago
  Please note, I did not call mhartl a man of "no real ethics, a sociopath, dangerous, self-serving, and someone to distance yourself from." I did say his ethics are weak, and I stand by this. Assuming he believes what he says, his anti-social position on the obligations of the corporation speak for themselves. And I did note that, when carried to the extreme, blind spots like the one shared by mhartl do, in fact, produce the litany of wrong that I mentioned (a position I REALLY stand by, having worked for people I wish I hadn't). I did not, however, say that mhartl himself represents these extremes. That's an important distinction. And if, as you say, he is an honest, well-intentioned, and generous man, then perhaps he arrived at his current position for some benign reason - a lack of careful thought, or maybe an insufficiency of experience. In any case, people who share his lack of concern have become responsible for some very major damage. This aspect of his thought is not incidental to the problem, it IS the problem. Or, rather, it is an essential component of the problem. Just consider what the OP is arguing. The faults of shareholder capitalism are not minor. Indeed, they have demonstrated a destructive power that has decimated companies, portfolios, and - at this late stage in the experiment - entire economies. This is not "creative destruction". It's shoot-yourself-in-both-feet-then-wonder-why-you-can't-walk destruction. And while we can demonstrate how bad it is now, there was no need to learn by doing. Had we considered the ethical failures inherent in mhartl's arguments sooner and more seriously, the crash of 2007/8 may have never come to pass. Again, we're talking about a line of thought that has produced deep and lasting harm in the lives of billions - but not without racking up billion dollar gains for a microscopic minority who have responded by using their inordinate power to capture and corrupt the government we all depend on. This is really bad stuff. Historically speaking, this trajectory reduces citizens to subjects, and the weakest to slaves. Whether he realizes it or not, thinking like martl's supported the wrong side of political situation that has made itself the dominant evil of the day. It needs to end, and the generation that does end it will probably spend the remainder of their lives cleaning up the mess. The sooner people disabuse themselves of the notions that allowed shareholder capitalism to spin so wildly out of control in the first place, the better off everyone is going to be - mhartl included.

by alexqgb 15y ago

notahacker 15y ago

The original argument was against facile generations like "businesses ought to maximise shareholder value" and "businesses ought to aim to create more customers, which the author quite reasonably pointed out didn't apply to his own business ventures. If anything, it's a criticism of "sociopathic" maxims like Milton Friedman's infamous "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits": the implication is that other objectives like paying himself a higher salary, working less, giving his books away for free on the internet to help everyone learn Rails or aiming for abstract "socially responsible" goals need not be subordinate to supposedly universal business imperatives of growing profits or customer bases. The ethical implications of limited liability laws (one ought not to take credit one has no expectation of repaying; one ought not to mislead investors) are a tangential issue; a list of things an owner ought not to do with their business (see also: sell crack to kids, sexually harass staff, murder competitors) can happily exist in the absence of some overriding objective business owners ought to follow.

bricestacey 15y ago

I think you may have valid criticisms, but were out of line to call mhartl a man of "no real ethics, a sociopath, dangerous, self-serving, and someone to distance yourself from." I have only exchanged emails briefly, regarding his book, and he is nothing short of an honest, well-intentioned, and generous man. Let's avoid the attacks and keep the conversation civil.

alexqgb 15y ago
Please note, I did not call mhartl a man of "no real ethics, a sociopath, dangerous, self-serving, and someone to distance yourself from." I did say his ethics are weak, and I stand by this. Assuming he believes what he says, his anti-social position on the obligations of the corporation speak for themselves. And I did note that, when carried to the extreme, blind spots like the one shared by mhartl do, in fact, produce the litany of wrong that I mentioned (a position I REALLY stand by, having worked for people I wish I hadn't). I did not, however, say that mhartl himself represents these extremes. That's an important distinction. And if, as you say, he is an honest, well-intentioned, and generous man, then perhaps he arrived at his current position for some benign reason - a lack of careful thought, or maybe an insufficiency of experience. In any case, people who share his lack of concern have become responsible for some very major damage. This aspect of his thought is not incidental to the problem, it IS the problem. Or, rather, it is an essential component of the problem. Just consider what the OP is arguing. The faults of shareholder capitalism are not minor. Indeed, they have demonstrated a destructive power that has decimated companies, portfolios, and - at this late stage in the experiment - entire economies. This is not "creative destruction". It's shoot-yourself-in-both-feet-then-wonder-why-you-can't-walk destruction. And while we can demonstrate how bad it is now, there was no need to learn by doing. Had we considered the ethical failures inherent in mhartl's arguments sooner and more seriously, the crash of 2007/8 may have never come to pass. Again, we're talking about a line of thought that has produced deep and lasting harm in the lives of billions - but not without racking up billion dollar gains for a microscopic minority who have responded by using their inordinate power to capture and corrupt the government we all depend on. This is really bad stuff. Historically speaking, this trajectory reduces citizens to subjects, and the weakest to slaves. Whether he realizes it or not, thinking like martl's supported the wrong side of political situation that has made itself the dominant evil of the day. It needs to end, and the generation that does end it will probably spend the remainder of their lives cleaning up the mess. The sooner people disabuse themselves of the notions that allowed shareholder capitalism to spin so wildly out of control in the first place, the better off everyone is going to be - mhartl included.