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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8903383" data-attributes="member: 6790260">The problem is, you are (essentially) asking that corporations develop an inherent internal pressure toward (a) behaving ethically regardless of the (temporary or ongoing) costs, (b) prioritizing long-term success over short-term profits, and (c) rewarding effective stewardship that builds symbolic/infrastructural/non-pecuniary strength instead of rewarding cunning ploys that prioritize squeezing out every dollar no matter what.This won't happen. The motive to do these things can only arise in three ways. The first is for it to be there from the beginning, a desire that preceded the desire to make money. The second is for it to arise in response to the objective failure and breakdown that results from "selling tomorrow to buy today"--when the corporation's leadership can no longer deny or deflect or "re-orient" or whatever, and must actually take responsibility for their unwise, short-sighted decisions and thus actually improve. And the third, of course, is external pressure from force, sometimes soft force like customer advocacy, but much more commonly the force of law because corporations tend to be good at dodging soft force efforts.Unfortunately, the first way tends to disappear as companies age, because the people who had that internalized attitude promote out or retire. The second way only happens after the problem has become so bad it can't be ignored anymore, and that carries an extreme risk of the company simply going under. Even if it doesn't, you basically just get the same problem as before, albeit more slowly because it's not localized to a few founders, it's an internal-culture change. Such things linger. And the third way, in a very meaningful sense, never actually achieves the goal at all--because it does so by making an external pressure that the corporate entities will almost certainly resent and resist as much as they are able. (It's related to the problem of teaching: how do you get someone to want to learn? How do you actually transmit knowledge and not simply information?)It's an inherent problem of allowing people to do what they wish to do, rather than forcing them to fall in line: there will always be the temptation to exploit. And, of course, the inherent problems of forcing people to fall in line are well-known.How do we make humans who desire to be moral, not because they are forced to, but because they choose to? Unless you find an answer to this question, corporations (and all sorts of other human organizational groups, corporations aren't special) will continue to do crappy, stupid, self-destructive things in the name of maximal exploitation for minimal investment.</blockquote>

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