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Except that the most successful companies have paid close attention to negative externalities. Ford Motors shortened the work week and paid workers a high wage

Except that the most successful companies have paid close attention to negative externalities. Ford Motors shortened the work week and paid workers a high wage at the cost of short-term profit. Cage-free chicken eggs and eco-friendly shoe/clothing brands are quickly becoming more popular than the alternative. Consumers generally care about negative externalities so they often do not stay externalities for long.

gmerc 3y ago
Exxon? Any oil company? Nestle? Facebook? Walmart? please.
jonahbenton 3y ago
Whoa, it's fairy tale time. The idea that successful companies pay attention to in order to address what from an economic perspective are negative externalities is a complete fiction. Every single industry- energy, food, real estate, entertainment, finance, tech, clothing- exists, and the economics work- because the "costs" to nature are not accounted for. That's what an externality is.
blargey 3y ago
It’s been a century since that period of Ford, where are those high-paying U.S. factory jobs now? Greenwashing fads come and go, it’s all built on dumb technicalities. Try navigating your way through “cage free” vs “pasture raised” vs “certified humane” and thinking about what negative externalities those actually mitigate, how they’re enforced, what that amounts to in the grand scheme of things. Restaurant and fast food and your average grocer/shopper are still picking the cheapest Tyson cut. “Organic grass fed” milk is still drawn from the exhausted teat of 24/7 artificially inseminated veal-factories. It’s all marketing campaigns built on dumb technicalities.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  Not only that, but they aren't more popular than their alternatives and never will be absent regulation.
imtringued 3y ago
https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/09/24/how-to-make-the-oil-industry-go-bust/ https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/09/24/how-to-make-t... I think the title is amusing. People in the comment section responded not based the content but on the title asking "why do you want to make the oil industry go bust?" The entire point of the post is that nobody has to do anything to achieve that outcome. It already is bankrupt.
tuatoru 3y ago
> Except that the most successful companies have paid close attention to negative externalities. Ford Motors shortened the work week and paid workers a high wage ... The length of the work week and worker wages are not external to the Ford motor company. Paying for cancer treatments for people who live near roads, and to reduce the noise pollution from cars in cities would be examples of remediating externalities.

gmerc 3y ago

Exxon? Any oil company? Nestle? Facebook? Walmart? please.

jonahbenton 3y ago

Whoa, it's fairy tale time. The idea that successful companies pay attention to in order to address what from an economic perspective are negative externalities is a complete fiction. Every single industry- energy, food, real estate, entertainment, finance, tech, clothing- exists, and the economics work- because the "costs" to nature are not accounted for. That's what an externality is.

blargey 3y ago

It’s been a century since that period of Ford, where are those high-paying U.S. factory jobs now? Greenwashing fads come and go, it’s all built on dumb technicalities. Try navigating your way through “cage free” vs “pasture raised” vs “certified humane” and thinking about what negative externalities those actually mitigate, how they’re enforced, what that amounts to in the grand scheme of things. Restaurant and fast food and your average grocer/shopper are still picking the cheapest Tyson cut. “Organic grass fed” milk is still drawn from the exhausted teat of 24/7 artificially inseminated veal-factories. It’s all marketing campaigns built on dumb technicalities.

lern_too_spel 3y ago
Not only that, but they aren't more popular than their alternatives and never will be absent regulation.

imtringued 3y ago

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/09/24/how-to-make-the-oil-industry-go-bust/ https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/09/24/how-to-make-t... I think the title is amusing. People in the comment section responded not based the content but on the title asking "why do you want to make the oil industry go bust?" The entire point of the post is that nobody has to do anything to achieve that outcome. It already is bankrupt.

tuatoru 3y ago

> Except that the most successful companies have paid close attention to negative externalities. Ford Motors shortened the work week and paid workers a high wage ... The length of the work week and worker wages are not external to the Ford motor company. Paying for cancer treatments for people who live near roads, and to reduce the noise pollution from cars in cities would be examples of remediating externalities.