6 ms·

The corporation can also be scum by virtue of being an unpleasant actor in society.

erulabs 3y ago
Yes but it's much harder calculus. What's the net of a very large tractor manufacturer existing or not existing? If they lobby in a way you don't like but they also cause cereals to be 15% cheaper, how can you calculate their "unpleasant"-ness? A public official taking a contribution in return for carving out an exception in a law is quite an easy one.
- mjburgess 3y ago
  The same calculus applies to the politician, you're just imparting certain social duties on one and not the other. If you want to know why american society is prone to this sort of privitized corruption: this is it. Business is seen as a pure mechanism, but politics is a place of hyper-individualized duty. In europe, i think the reverse is more often true. Businesses are seen in personalized ways, as having explicit social duties compromised by greed; and politics is a pure mechanism.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Erm no - businesses can also be moral. In fact there's an enormous social pressure to look good. That's why people get fired for things that happen on Twitter. The only difference is businesses get money for doing something someone else wants, and they need to keep doing that. Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing: be impartial and resistant to even more free money.
    - mjburgess 3y ago
      >Erm no - businesses can also be moral. That's my point. We agree. > businesses get money for doing something someone else wants > Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing ^ Here is my issue. This is a cognitive-dissonance. You can equally say: businesses failing their social duty aren't giving society what it wants; rather, they are sating the greed of their customers, shareholders and execs. Whereas politicians are balancing competing power interests into a compromise piece of legislation with a chance of being passed, and thereby improving the situation; if, very imperfectly. You see, under these reframings it is the biz failing, not the polician. to be clear, I do not agree with either framing. My point is only how quickly americans adopt this "if someone's buying, it's excusable" morality as applied to business. As-if politics were a place of heroic powerful individuals, and business merely a mechanism. The reality is both is true of both. Business can be held to much higher standards; and politicans can be more subtly understood.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > My point is only how quickly americans adopt this "if someone's buying, it's excusable" morality as applied to business. I'm not sure why you're talking about Americans, but my point is that the main thing a business does is create employment and useful goods or services. > As-if politics were a place of heroic powerful individuals, and business merely a mechanism. No, creating employment and useful goods or services is extremely important and heroic. It's just different to being the person who takes money from others on the sole basis that he/she will be impartial and not take bribes.
        AYBABTME 3y ago
        > I'm not sure why you're talking about Americans As a foreigner in America, I think America is culturally particularly business oriented and holds favorable views on business activities (until they get too large and obscure, then they become led by lizards or some such), and in particular I think the average person here is more prone to think that it's ok for a business or person to seek to maximize their position in the market by almost any legal means. As in, if the player is good at the game, you can't blame the player (up to a point).
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        They should maximise by legal means. That's how you get better service, lower prices and better products. That's why computers aren't $1m each or still in the KHz CPU range. Or why every company is now making electric cars. Or... why most things are as good as they are.
        mjburgess 3y ago
        But that's an naive ideological take on the virtues of business; whilst at the same time you offer a naive cynical take on the vices of politics. D'you not see this sort of double-think taking place? Exactly the same naive gloss can be given of policitians: their compromises are part of the democratic process by which competing power interests are balanced without oppression. There are no Company Stores, or Company Scrips because corporate power is given "an inch" but no more. And there are FDAs and the like because Society gets its two inches. And so on. Politicans are creatures of a mechanism as much as businesses. This "reduce one to mere mechanism, but not the other" is pure naive ideology. Business does not "offer better prices" etc. through this mechanism. It offers prices every bit as flawed as politics offers policies.
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  If the politician is scum as a result of having ought to judge the corporations' lobby as being scum, then it follows that the politician is able to come up with a calculus where the corporation is scum. And if the politician is able to, so am I.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
standardUser 3y ago
You can call them "scum" if it makes you feel better. But even if the greatest shame campaign the world has ever seen was to miraculously convince John Deere to change their ways, other companies would just step in and take advantage of the system the same way John Deere has. The only solution is to change the rules.

Yes but it's much harder calculus. What's the net of a very large tractor manufacturer existing or not existing? If they lobby in a way you don't like but they also cause cereals to be 15% cheaper, how can you calculate their "unpleasant"-ness? A public official taking a contribution in return for carving out an exception in a law is quite an easy one.

mjburgess 3y ago
The same calculus applies to the politician, you're just imparting certain social duties on one and not the other. If you want to know why american society is prone to this sort of privitized corruption: this is it. Business is seen as a pure mechanism, but politics is a place of hyper-individualized duty. In europe, i think the reverse is more often true. Businesses are seen in personalized ways, as having explicit social duties compromised by greed; and politics is a pure mechanism.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Erm no - businesses can also be moral. In fact there's an enormous social pressure to look good. That's why people get fired for things that happen on Twitter. The only difference is businesses get money for doing something someone else wants, and they need to keep doing that. Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing: be impartial and resistant to even more free money.
  - mjburgess 3y ago
    >Erm no - businesses can also be moral. That's my point. We agree. > businesses get money for doing something someone else wants > Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing ^ Here is my issue. This is a cognitive-dissonance. You can equally say: businesses failing their social duty aren't giving society what it wants; rather, they are sating the greed of their customers, shareholders and execs. Whereas politicians are balancing competing power interests into a compromise piece of legislation with a chance of being passed, and thereby improving the situation; if, very imperfectly. You see, under these reframings it is the biz failing, not the polician. to be clear, I do not agree with either framing. My point is only how quickly americans adopt this "if someone's buying, it's excusable" morality as applied to business. As-if politics were a place of heroic powerful individuals, and business merely a mechanism. The reality is both is true of both. Business can be held to much higher standards; and politicans can be more subtly understood.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > My point is only how quickly americans adopt this "if someone's buying, it's excusable" morality as applied to business. I'm not sure why you're talking about Americans, but my point is that the main thing a business does is create employment and useful goods or services. > As-if politics were a place of heroic powerful individuals, and business merely a mechanism. No, creating employment and useful goods or services is extremely important and heroic. It's just different to being the person who takes money from others on the sole basis that he/she will be impartial and not take bribes.
      - AYBABTME 3y ago
        > I'm not sure why you're talking about Americans As a foreigner in America, I think America is culturally particularly business oriented and holds favorable views on business activities (until they get too large and obscure, then they become led by lizards or some such), and in particular I think the average person here is more prone to think that it's ok for a business or person to seek to maximize their position in the market by almost any legal means. As in, if the player is good at the game, you can't blame the player (up to a point).
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        They should maximise by legal means. That's how you get better service, lower prices and better products. That's why computers aren't $1m each or still in the KHz CPU range. Or why every company is now making electric cars. Or... why most things are as good as they are.
        mjburgess 3y ago
        But that's an naive ideological take on the virtues of business; whilst at the same time you offer a naive cynical take on the vices of politics. D'you not see this sort of double-think taking place? Exactly the same naive gloss can be given of policitians: their compromises are part of the democratic process by which competing power interests are balanced without oppression. There are no Company Stores, or Company Scrips because corporate power is given "an inch" but no more. And there are FDAs and the like because Society gets its two inches. And so on. Politicans are creatures of a mechanism as much as businesses. This "reduce one to mere mechanism, but not the other" is pure naive ideology. Business does not "offer better prices" etc. through this mechanism. It offers prices every bit as flawed as politics offers policies.
AYBABTME 3y ago
If the politician is scum as a result of having ought to judge the corporations' lobby as being scum, then it follows that the politician is able to come up with a calculus where the corporation is scum. And if the politician is able to, so am I.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

standardUser 3y ago

You can call them "scum" if it makes you feel better. But even if the greatest shame campaign the world has ever seen was to miraculously convince John Deere to change their ways, other companies would just step in and take advantage of the system the same way John Deere has. The only solution is to change the rules.