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I’ll go ahead and say it then: The CEO shouldn’t have the right to arbitrarily lay off people. They should have to go through substantial formal procedures to

I’ll go ahead and say it then: The CEO shouldn’t have the right to arbitrarily lay off people. They should have to go through substantial formal procedures to do so, much more than the United States makes them go through now. Furthermore, _Chrysler v Ford_ was not actually a precedential legal decision at either a federal or state level, and we need to stop treating it as such—and we need to stop treating it as morally correct, too, since it’s not morally correct to put profit-seeking above all other concerns in any way.

triceratops 2y ago
> _Chrysler v Ford_ was not actually a precedential legal decision AFAICT it wasn't any kind of decision. Are you thinking of Dodge v Ford? > it’s not morally correct to put profit-seeking above all other concerns in any way Dodge v Ford held that companies are run for the benefit of shareholders. Future court decisions further clarified that "benefit" isn't the same as profit. As I wrote in this comment 8 months ago: > The Supreme Court said as recently as 2016: "Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not...More to the point, corporate directors are protected from most interference when it comes to running their business by a doctrine known as the business judgment rule. It says, in brief, that so long as a board of directors is not tainted by personal conflicts of interest and makes a reasonable effort to stay informed, courts will not second-guess the board’s decisions about what is best for the company — even when those decisions predictably reduce profits or share price." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643452
- eschaton 2y ago
  Thank you, I indeed meant _Dodge v Ford_. At the time it was decided it really did equate benefit with profit, but as you said there have been a bunch of subsequent decisions specifically declaring that they’re not the same thing. And as I said, the decision itself was non-precedential.

triceratops 2y ago

> _Chrysler v Ford_ was not actually a precedential legal decision AFAICT it wasn't any kind of decision. Are you thinking of Dodge v Ford? > it’s not morally correct to put profit-seeking above all other concerns in any way Dodge v Ford held that companies are run for the benefit of shareholders. Future court decisions further clarified that "benefit" isn't the same as profit. As I wrote in this comment 8 months ago: > The Supreme Court said as recently as 2016: "Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not...More to the point, corporate directors are protected from most interference when it comes to running their business by a doctrine known as the business judgment rule. It says, in brief, that so long as a board of directors is not tainted by personal conflicts of interest and makes a reasonable effort to stay informed, courts will not second-guess the board’s decisions about what is best for the company — even when those decisions predictably reduce profits or share price." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39643452

eschaton 2y ago
Thank you, I indeed meant _Dodge v Ford_. At the time it was decided it really did equate benefit with profit, but as you said there have been a bunch of subsequent decisions specifically declaring that they’re not the same thing. And as I said, the decision itself was non-precedential.