Publicly traded companies have a legal responsability to their shareholders to make financial decisions that result in more profit. Things like morals aren’t factored in.
Yup. Money is the only language of public companies and that is why controlling ethical impact and climate impact should be handled by the government by extra taxation or fines that direct companies away from bad faith business strategies. I don’t personally see another way. The current infinite growth expectation is getting stupider every day.
Regulation isn’t enough we need a different default behavior. To get a different behavior from companies, we need a new constituency for the leaders of the company to be accountable to. The most natural constituency is the people that work in that company. Then, their own social sympathies to the local community will play a role in their decision making, so the company will behave differently. That along with charging polluters for their social costs could address it
Decisions shouldn’t be dictated by entry level people that have no experience simply because they are a local resident. The business being at odds with itself would produce more random results depending on the involvement of the employees.
If fines and taxes were proportionate to harm done, then companies wouldn’t have any incentive to do harm. It’s simpler and it still allows high level decisions to be made with care and expertise. People rely on their employers to stay in business and support employees after all.
The leaders of the companies would be delegates of the workers in the firm (like a representative democracy).If firms are always worker coops, when interviewing candidates for jobs, they will factor in the fact that these new worker-members will have voting rights within the firm and make sure that they are qualified for that role as well.
The workers should be able to vote out leadership if they are bad
Fines and taxes are good for harms that the legal system can anticipate, which is not all
Will security guards and janitors vote? You need to hire college graduate interns that you entrust with voting to oust an executive when they have no job or life experience? What if your company is fast growing and new employees are more numerous than senior employees? Do remote workers vote on decisions that only affect local workers? Do Global companies decide who votes on what? What if no employee lives where exploitation can happen, and opt to benefit themselves by choosing the profitable option for the sake of a bonus or job security? Will companies try to manipulate their employees to believe what is in the best interest of the company? Will these rules unfairly affect certain companies versus others? Stifle innovations unnecessarily in one industry or many? Knowing if someone is qualified to vote on the future of the company seems hardly possible in the span of an interview.
Solutions for problems like these are hard. We don’t know and aren’t qualified to talk on it. But I just think significant fines and taxes are a direct control point on the one metric that companies are motivates by.
Not arguing against fines and taxes just that it is not sufficient
Those de facto responsible for producing the company’s positive and negative product should have the right to vote over the company’s leadership. The moral principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match mandates this. The employer’s sole legal responsibility for the firm’s positive and negative results violates this principle. Irresponsibility is baked into today’s work organization
Publicly traded companies have a legal responsability to their shareholders to make financial decisions that result in more profit. Things like morals aren’t factored in.
I’m not sure why this is being downvoted. It fucking sucks for sure, but it’s true. It’s one of the biggest flaws in our current system.
Yup. Money is the only language of public companies and that is why controlling ethical impact and climate impact should be handled by the government by extra taxation or fines that direct companies away from bad faith business strategies. I don’t personally see another way. The current infinite growth expectation is getting stupider every day.
Regulation isn’t enough we need a different default behavior. To get a different behavior from companies, we need a new constituency for the leaders of the company to be accountable to. The most natural constituency is the people that work in that company. Then, their own social sympathies to the local community will play a role in their decision making, so the company will behave differently. That along with charging polluters for their social costs could address it
Decisions shouldn’t be dictated by entry level people that have no experience simply because they are a local resident. The business being at odds with itself would produce more random results depending on the involvement of the employees.
If fines and taxes were proportionate to harm done, then companies wouldn’t have any incentive to do harm. It’s simpler and it still allows high level decisions to be made with care and expertise. People rely on their employers to stay in business and support employees after all.
The leaders of the companies would be delegates of the workers in the firm (like a representative democracy).If firms are always worker coops, when interviewing candidates for jobs, they will factor in the fact that these new worker-members will have voting rights within the firm and make sure that they are qualified for that role as well.
The workers should be able to vote out leadership if they are bad
Fines and taxes are good for harms that the legal system can anticipate, which is not all
Will security guards and janitors vote? You need to hire college graduate interns that you entrust with voting to oust an executive when they have no job or life experience? What if your company is fast growing and new employees are more numerous than senior employees? Do remote workers vote on decisions that only affect local workers? Do Global companies decide who votes on what? What if no employee lives where exploitation can happen, and opt to benefit themselves by choosing the profitable option for the sake of a bonus or job security? Will companies try to manipulate their employees to believe what is in the best interest of the company? Will these rules unfairly affect certain companies versus others? Stifle innovations unnecessarily in one industry or many? Knowing if someone is qualified to vote on the future of the company seems hardly possible in the span of an interview.
Solutions for problems like these are hard. We don’t know and aren’t qualified to talk on it. But I just think significant fines and taxes are a direct control point on the one metric that companies are motivates by.
Not arguing against fines and taxes just that it is not sufficient
Those de facto responsible for producing the company’s positive and negative product should have the right to vote over the company’s leadership. The moral principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match mandates this. The employer’s sole legal responsibility for the firm’s positive and negative results violates this principle. Irresponsibility is baked into today’s work organization
That’s all that fits in a toot
You can assert that as much as you want but I’m not seeing any further basis for discussion.