3 ms·

Not really - a corporation is a group of people. Sometimes those in control of it have no goal other than profit maximization, but by no means always.

• Absentinsomniac 12y ago
  Well, often if those running a corporation do not have profit maximization as their primary goal, they are voted out by investors. Essentially, maximizing profit becomes the job of the leaders as requested by those invested. There are some exceptions where corporations are profitable by targeting towards environmental things, or other causes, but the bottom line of profit is still there... Especially so with larger corporations.
  • wutbrodo 12y ago
    I suspect those downvoting gress don't understand what he's saying at all. His claim that "sometimes", thos ein charge aren't only thinking about profit maximization is excluding the case you're describing, where "those in charge" is some combination of investors and the actual execs (specifically, in your example, "those in charge" _are_ in favor of profit maximization). There are a fair few examples in tech where founders have managed to hold on to a disproportionate amount of control and can much more accurately said to be fully "in charge", and those are the cases gress is claiming exists.
    • gress 12y ago
      Thanks - that is part of what I'm saying. Also, as another point, 'profit maximization' is predicting the future, and there is a lot of room for different views of what the future will be.
  • lukifer 12y ago
    Corporations of sufficient size are indistinguishable from quasi-intelligent entities that merely utilize humans as processing nodes: http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-soaking-in-it.html http://omniorthogonal.blogspot.com/2013/02/hostile-ai-youre-...
• lostlogin 12y ago
  I know this isn't the point you were addressing, but according to the law in the US the corporation is sometimes a person. Everyone's favourite source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood In relation to other places, see The City of London. There is an incredible situation with corporations there where they get to vote as if they were a number of people (equal to employee numbers). It's surreal.
  • pjc50 12y ago
    The City of London has that arrangement because it's a district where vastly more people commute in than live there. It's a square mile almost entirely populated by offices. (Although it has "corporation" in the name it has nothing to do with limited liability companies as the usual meaning of "corporation". It's a local government that's a millenium old and predates both modern banking and company law.)
  • walshemj 12y ago
    But they city has no real political power its one of those old hangovers in the uk political system - like when university graduates got two vote's - which was only abolished after ww2