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How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the cons
by wholinator2 2y ago
How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the consequence"
Instead of, "the human beings that we serve matter, and our duty to them comes before all else. We will profit by being the best in the market"
I think monopoly and MBAification of every leadership position at every company in at least America. Some of the curriculum is disgusting, anti human propaganda. It's absolutely not a given that shareholder profits come above everything else no matter what. The buck does not stop with fiduciary duty, the buck stops with the actual human beings you're company "serves", as we've just seen. Shareholder profits didn't order that person dead. Humans did.
It's insane that you can let your company perform so terribly, so catastrophicly evil for the public that it becomes impossible to know which of the millions of people who've has their lives damaged or destroyed would've actually decided to order your ceo dead rather than just gleefully commiserate about it at their mothers funeral. I think we get there by destroying the real market. I don't get to choose which insurance my job provides me! I don't know how that would work but all they have to do is pay more large companies to choose them and bam, locked in audience, disgusting parody of a free market, death for thousands of sick people and one CEO. Antitrust needs to block every merger for the next 10 years and obliterate any company that's powerful enough to capture over 20,000,000 customers while the vast majority of them _actively despise you_.
- Ygg2 2y ago> How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the consequence" What do you mean enter? This was always the model of capitalistic acquisition. Early industrial revolution was not known for it's blue skies, labor friendly laws and preventing children from working in the mines. The moment you have inflation, which you need to suppress wages of people living from wages (i.e. labor), is the moment you entered the magical roundabout of infinite growth. The only time capitalism had to placate labor was when communism was a credible rival.
- gruez 2y ago>This was always the model of capitalistic acquisition. Early industrial revolution was not known for it's blue skies, labor friendly laws and preventing children from working in the mines. Except for "blue skies", the other things you've listed are the default state of nature. Children worked the moment they were able. Even without a capitalist boss, people worked their asses off during the planting/harvest season under the threat of starvation. The other rest of the year might be more lax, but you're still desperately praying that drought or disease won't wipe away your hard work and leave you starving regardless.
- ConspiracyFact 2y ago>the other things you've listed are the default state of nature That depends on what you consider to be the default. If you're talking about pre-agricultural man, the difficulty of life varied based on population density. A band of human beings that found an isolated island wouldn't have practiced child labor. They'd do a little bit of work to maintain comfortable living standards and spend most of their time on leisure activities. An area with many competing tribes, on the other hand, would see harsh and sometimes brutal social practices. Again, in a pre-industrial agricultural society, the difficulty of life also varied based on population density. Shortly after the invention of some new agricultural technique or tool, there would be abundance, peace, and easy living. Once that technique had caused a population boom, there would be scarcity, war, and hard living. >Even without a capitalist boss, people worked their asses off during the planting/harvest season under the threat of starvation. So, yeah--this isn't true in general.
- Ygg2 2y ago> Except for "blue skies", the other things you've listed are the default state of nature. Children worked the moment they were able. Not sure if bait or that uneducated. But during early days of industrial revolution was well known for exploitative practices like: children dying in mine collapses, children dying of black lungs, losing their limbs in various machinery. If you can find these all-natural looms, mines, and labor laws in nature, I'd love to see it. > Even without a capitalist boss, people worked their asses off during the planting/harvest season So because it was worse before, we shouldn't strive to improve the system?
- quickthrowman 2y ago> How did we enter a world in which the only given fact that must be held true is that "the business profit will grow unceasingly for all time, no matter the consequence” The Federal Reserve (or central banks in general) has a dual mandate to stabilize prices and maximize employment. The Fed uses monetary policy to manage inflation and attempt to keep a slight amount of inflation without having too much inflation or any deflation. If your profit growth is lower than the rate of inflation, you’re be making less money every year this is the case. Shareholders generally want to achieve a return that is higher than the rate of inflation, aka a ‘real return’. Tl;dr - Central banks using monetary policy to achieve a constant low rate of inflation is why profit must keep growing forever to remain in business.