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How is it bullshit? > but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. That's litera

How is it bullshit? > but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. That's literally what happens today everywhere. Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. But what I think GP means is that companies don't inherently have any ethics since they are not people. If a company behaves ethically it's because its owners and employees are doing so, but the company can't have any ethics of its own. Regular people doing their day to day jobs on these criminal health insurance companies, for example, will perform acts that are extremely unethical as an individual, but since they're representing "the company" all that goes out of the window. > we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!" We can call them out but we, the people, can't enforce anything. Maybe we could collectively try to sue them, but at best that's a civil lawsuit and they'll have to pay a bit of money (likely an already accounted cost for businesses that use shady tactics). But to make that criminal, as many times it should, then only the government is empowered to. But we should never forget that we are the ones that keep the government accountable. If they don't do their job and we let them, it's all of our faults. I mean, one of the reasons companies exist in the first place is to allow individuals to behave unethically IMO. Anyone can do bat shit crazy things that they would never get away with when they're behind the protection of a company.

skrebbel 1y ago
> Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. As the co-owner of a small company I'm more than a little offended. We're not evil at all, we try our best to do right by our customers, our people, and our community. The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). Companies are groups of people. Yes we need laws to restrain badly behaving companies but that does not mean people running badly behaving companies get a pass until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together.
- Draiken 1y ago
  I'm happy that there are exceptions, but the fact is that most companies will throw ethics out of the window the second it hits profits. It's easy to be ethical when it's for free. > The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). I never said that. What I said is merely what we see in today's capitalism: barring a few exceptions, companies are almost never held responsible. Probably one of the most egregious examples of this is the health care industry in the US but we often forget how banks ruined millions of people's lives in 2008 and almost nobody from the big banks went to jail. We bailed those criminals out and they felt zero consequences. They got a pass. I agree with you that nobody should get a pass, but I'd be naive if I said they don't. > until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together. How else are we going to do anything? Aside from taking justice into our own hands like Luigi Mangione, the best we can do is try to sue them and spend huge amounts of money to maybe get them to pay a small fine. Or perhaps employees inside of these companies can be whistleblowers and blow up their own lives trying to get some sort of justice. I hate that this is the reality we live in but we can't pretend it's not.
  - skrebbel 1y ago
    I'd wager the the majority of small and medium business in my hometown act ethically. You pick out the worst behaving faceless bigcorps and generalize that to every company out there. But the vast majority of the world's economy is small local companies. By and large, these companies aren't evil. Also some larger companies try their best (eg eco-banks, brands like Patagonia, etc). I'm not saying they always succeed but to blanket call all of these "evil" as you keep on doing is ridiculous.
    - Draiken 1y ago
      Companies exist for one reason: to generate profits. There's not way around it. An ethical company will pay fairer wages, will not exploit users, apply dark patterns, stifle competition, etc. and non-ethical companies will do all of the above to generate more profits than the ethical one. In the utopian world where there's endless competition, perhaps people could choose the ethical companies and they'd win fair and square. But the second you add reality back in, you add monopolies, oligopolies, geographical restrictions, etc. into the mix and these companies can get away with whatever behavior they want since consumers don't have a choice. That's not even accounting for the fact that many people couldn't give a single f** to ethics, as long as they can buy their products for cheaper. Many would love to care, but simply cannot afford it, since all companies optimize to compress salaries. I could go on, but hopefully my point is clear. Traditional companies will eventually become evil in their pursuit for profits even if they don't intentionally do so. Ethics is not part of the equation at all. It's bleak but until I see proof that this is incorrect, my point stands. Both the logical conclusion of capitalist theory and the real world we live in right now agree. Small and medium businesses are not yet big enough to optimize themselves to become evil (although it doesn't stop them from being evil for other reasons). Since the end game of competition is monopoly, we can see how big conglomerates are straight up buying up the competition which will eventually tip the scales to being a majority of big companies. The reality is that the only businesses that stay small are the ones that don't scale. Otherwise big players would've already swooped in and enshitified them. I'd love to imagine when I grow my company I'll be ethical, fair and structure it in a way that the goal is to make everyone in it rich while producing something good. But the most likely outcome is that it'll get crushed by competition that will not care or if I hit big, it'll grow enough and become evil.

skrebbel 1y ago

> Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. As the co-owner of a small company I'm more than a little offended. We're not evil at all, we try our best to do right by our customers, our people, and our community. The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). Companies are groups of people. Yes we need laws to restrain badly behaving companies but that does not mean people running badly behaving companies get a pass until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together.

Draiken 1y ago
I'm happy that there are exceptions, but the fact is that most companies will throw ethics out of the window the second it hits profits. It's easy to be ethical when it's for free. > The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). I never said that. What I said is merely what we see in today's capitalism: barring a few exceptions, companies are almost never held responsible. Probably one of the most egregious examples of this is the health care industry in the US but we often forget how banks ruined millions of people's lives in 2008 and almost nobody from the big banks went to jail. We bailed those criminals out and they felt zero consequences. They got a pass. I agree with you that nobody should get a pass, but I'd be naive if I said they don't. > until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together. How else are we going to do anything? Aside from taking justice into our own hands like Luigi Mangione, the best we can do is try to sue them and spend huge amounts of money to maybe get them to pay a small fine. Or perhaps employees inside of these companies can be whistleblowers and blow up their own lives trying to get some sort of justice. I hate that this is the reality we live in but we can't pretend it's not.
- skrebbel 1y ago
  I'd wager the the majority of small and medium business in my hometown act ethically. You pick out the worst behaving faceless bigcorps and generalize that to every company out there. But the vast majority of the world's economy is small local companies. By and large, these companies aren't evil. Also some larger companies try their best (eg eco-banks, brands like Patagonia, etc). I'm not saying they always succeed but to blanket call all of these "evil" as you keep on doing is ridiculous.
  - Draiken 1y ago
    Companies exist for one reason: to generate profits. There's not way around it. An ethical company will pay fairer wages, will not exploit users, apply dark patterns, stifle competition, etc. and non-ethical companies will do all of the above to generate more profits than the ethical one. In the utopian world where there's endless competition, perhaps people could choose the ethical companies and they'd win fair and square. But the second you add reality back in, you add monopolies, oligopolies, geographical restrictions, etc. into the mix and these companies can get away with whatever behavior they want since consumers don't have a choice. That's not even accounting for the fact that many people couldn't give a single f** to ethics, as long as they can buy their products for cheaper. Many would love to care, but simply cannot afford it, since all companies optimize to compress salaries. I could go on, but hopefully my point is clear. Traditional companies will eventually become evil in their pursuit for profits even if they don't intentionally do so. Ethics is not part of the equation at all. It's bleak but until I see proof that this is incorrect, my point stands. Both the logical conclusion of capitalist theory and the real world we live in right now agree. Small and medium businesses are not yet big enough to optimize themselves to become evil (although it doesn't stop them from being evil for other reasons). Since the end game of competition is monopoly, we can see how big conglomerates are straight up buying up the competition which will eventually tip the scales to being a majority of big companies. The reality is that the only businesses that stay small are the ones that don't scale. Otherwise big players would've already swooped in and enshitified them. I'd love to imagine when I grow my company I'll be ethical, fair and structure it in a way that the goal is to make everyone in it rich while producing something good. But the most likely outcome is that it'll get crushed by competition that will not care or if I hit big, it'll grow enough and become evil.