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Firstly, the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder value is a recent myth. Before that, it was understood that corporations are chartered to serve the public i

Firstly, the sole purpose of maximizing shareholder value is a recent myth. Before that, it was understood that corporations are chartered to serve the public interest. A few may argue that corporations are super-persons imbued with super-rights which outweigh the rights of actual persons. Please note that's a minority viewpoint. Secondly, corporations are not the only cast members with agency in this narrative. Our government, the source of all that free money, acting on the goals of full employment and bountiful future tax revenue, probably has some agency. Us individuals, whose blood and entrails lubricate the gears of the machine built from our bone and sinew, also have agency. Stuff like get fat and happy and watch our grandkids grow up, have enough excess wealth and time to travel a bit, to not bleed out in a ditch, cold and haggard, after a lifetime of toil. And most of us aren't particularly invested in further enriching the latest cohort of robber barons.

subradios 4y ago
It's not a recent myth, saying that the purpose of an organization or class of organization "is" something depends on legal and social context. Friedman popularized the idea of fiduciary duty in the field of economics, and even popular left economists like Keynes didn't foundationally dispute that premise. You can think it shouldn't be popular among economists for moral, aesthetic, or even empirical reasons - but to suggest somehow that the 1880s model of companies is "more correct" and assert it as truth is just as much a "myth" if you are framing these ideas about institutional purpose as "truth". The robber barons you speak of have created the single largest reduction in poverty in human history. Most of the west, and even poor Americans are living truly historically blessed lives - and by letting the robber barons loose, the CCP was able to lift nearly 1b people to a standard of living unimaginable to Chinese people in 1970. Capitalist thought and action is not immune to criticism, but the empirics are on capitalist ideas. Most of the common areas where Americans complain about "capitalist" processes are not capitalist under the hood at all.

subradios 4y ago

It's not a recent myth, saying that the purpose of an organization or class of organization "is" something depends on legal and social context. Friedman popularized the idea of fiduciary duty in the field of economics, and even popular left economists like Keynes didn't foundationally dispute that premise. You can think it shouldn't be popular among economists for moral, aesthetic, or even empirical reasons - but to suggest somehow that the 1880s model of companies is "more correct" and assert it as truth is just as much a "myth" if you are framing these ideas about institutional purpose as "truth". The robber barons you speak of have created the single largest reduction in poverty in human history. Most of the west, and even poor Americans are living truly historically blessed lives - and by letting the robber barons loose, the CCP was able to lift nearly 1b people to a standard of living unimaginable to Chinese people in 1970. Capitalist thought and action is not immune to criticism, but the empirics are on capitalist ideas. Most of the common areas where Americans complain about "capitalist" processes are not capitalist under the hood at all.