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Why? Corporations are made up of people, and people have causes they want to be charitable towards. If you’re going to be bringing in millions of dollars anyway

Why? Corporations are made up of people, and people have causes they want to be charitable towards. If you’re going to be bringing in millions of dollars anyway, why not pay some of that out to causes you believe in. It’s only weird if you assume all corporations should be amoral money exchange systems where by money is exchanged for labor and capital which in turn is exchanged for more money

pasquinelli 4y ago
> Corporations are made up of people, and people have causes they want to be charitable towards. almost none of the people that make up a corporation are free to decide where money goes. the few people that do take the money out, the board of directors or whatever, could just donate their own money to whatever charity.
- criddell 4y ago
  Most of the corporations in the US are pretty small. When a local plumbing company in your community sponsors a neighborhood little league team, there probably isn't much discussion on that company's board of directors about the donation. https://www.statista.com/statistics/487741/number-of-firms-in-the-us-by-employment-size/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/487741/number-of-firms-i...
philwelch 4y ago
> It’s only weird if you assume all corporations should be amoral money exchange systems where by money is exchanged for labor and capital which in turn is exchanged for more money What you’re missing is the final step in the chain, which is the part where profits are distributed to shareholders. If I’m one of those shareholders, I might very well take a large chunk of those dividends and donate the money to charity. But instead of paying me more of those dividends to donate to my preferred cause, the company’s management has decided that they should be the ones donating my money to their preferred cause. Aside from that, it’s just a failure of specialization. Philanthropy is hard, making money is hard, and building a single organization that does a good job at either of them is even harder. I’d rather have corporations that focused on doing a really good job at whatever they did and non-profits that do whatever they do as efficiently as possible, rather than a corporation trying to do both.

pasquinelli 4y ago

> Corporations are made up of people, and people have causes they want to be charitable towards. almost none of the people that make up a corporation are free to decide where money goes. the few people that do take the money out, the board of directors or whatever, could just donate their own money to whatever charity.

criddell 4y ago
Most of the corporations in the US are pretty small. When a local plumbing company in your community sponsors a neighborhood little league team, there probably isn't much discussion on that company's board of directors about the donation. https://www.statista.com/statistics/487741/number-of-firms-in-the-us-by-employment-size/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/487741/number-of-firms-i...

philwelch 4y ago

> It’s only weird if you assume all corporations should be amoral money exchange systems where by money is exchanged for labor and capital which in turn is exchanged for more money What you’re missing is the final step in the chain, which is the part where profits are distributed to shareholders. If I’m one of those shareholders, I might very well take a large chunk of those dividends and donate the money to charity. But instead of paying me more of those dividends to donate to my preferred cause, the company’s management has decided that they should be the ones donating my money to their preferred cause. Aside from that, it’s just a failure of specialization. Philanthropy is hard, making money is hard, and building a single organization that does a good job at either of them is even harder. I’d rather have corporations that focused on doing a really good job at whatever they did and non-profits that do whatever they do as efficiently as possible, rather than a corporation trying to do both.