4 ms·

>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

>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.
      - robertlagrant 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. I don't think that's a virtue of businesses. It's their primary function, and their primary good: producing useful stuff or services for their customers, and employment to their employees. The more useful their product/service, the more money they get, and the better their customers' and employees' lives will be. If they campaign to make that easier by making regulation less onerous, that's in pursuit of those primary goals. That's different to a government job (e.g. in regulation-setting/enforcing) where their sole job is to set and maintain good standards in their area. They provide no value other than that, and if they aren't even doing that, then they're worse than useless. They're useless and they cost money we aren't allowed to refuse to pay.

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.
    - robertlagrant 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. I don't think that's a virtue of businesses. It's their primary function, and their primary good: producing useful stuff or services for their customers, and employment to their employees. The more useful their product/service, the more money they get, and the better their customers' and employees' lives will be. If they campaign to make that easier by making regulation less onerous, that's in pursuit of those primary goals. That's different to a government job (e.g. in regulation-setting/enforcing) where their sole job is to set and maintain good standards in their area. They provide no value other than that, and if they aren't even doing that, then they're worse than useless. They're useless and they cost money we aren't allowed to refuse to pay.