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qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Some false premises in this thread — corporations are not required to maximize profits. Even if maximizing profit was mandatory, this is a pretty subjective topic — is short term profit while pissing off your customers “maximizing profit,” or is sacrificing short term gains for long term customer loyalty “maximizing profit”? It’s not a rhetorical question, and I think you can find examples of both.

Corporations are also not all pursuing endless growth; in addition to “growth stocks” there are “dividend stocks.” Some companies aren’t aggressively pursuing growth, but are making profit, and the stock reflects this. It feels almost antiquated in the “to the moon” era, but these companies do exist.

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smeg@feddit.uk ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Interesting little article

In other words, it is activist hedge funds and modern executive compensation practices — not corporate law — that drive so many of today’s public companies to myopically focus on short-term earnings; cut back on investment and innovation; mistreat their employees, customers and communities; and indulge in reckless, irresponsible and environmentally destructive behaviors.

So I guess the publicly-owned model allows the bad shit to happen when the majority of shareholders are get-rich-quick hedge fund types then?

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bartolomeo@suppo.fi ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is like the “there are some responsible assault rifle owners” argument. Although corporations are not required by law to maximize investor returns, CEO “compensation” is often tied to “performance” so the incentives of those with the most decision power make it de facto required to maximize returns to investors. That’s why Musk needed to convince his board of directors (who are there to represent the best interests of the share holders) to approve some ridiculous pay package. His “performance” in their eyes is proportional to share holder profits so if they’re happy, he gets his absurd pay package, which is why his incentive is to maximize profits for shareholders by any means necessary.

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- t3rmit3@beehaw.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Corporations are inherently the vehicle of non-mutually-beneficial capitalist profit-seeking. They cannot really be anything else. That’s what differentiates them from a profitable ‘mom-and-pop’ grocer selling local produce and handcrafts. The purpose of incorporating as a business is to limit liability by separating the assets and incomes from the owners and investors, in order to allow profits to be gained without actually engaging in a good-faith exchange with prospective business partners/customers (since corporate bankruptcy limits their ability to recoup losses from the individuals running the business).
  
  Weapons are a means to do harm, but they are not something that the mere ownership of implies a threat from; most people do not being their guns everywhere. If they do bring it somewhere, that indicates an adversarial stance towards the place or persons who they’re meeting. Put another way, “gun ownership” is very different than “having a gun present with which you could threaten someone”.
  
  Corporations, on the other hand, are at all times and in all business dealings leveling that threat of one-sided liability, because it is intrinsic to them as corporations. You can own a gun without threatening to shoot anyone with it. You can’t operate a corporation without threatening to evade rightful liability.
  
  It is possible to be a “responsible assault rifle owner”. It’s not possible to be a non-exploitative corporation.
  
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