alt Hacker NewsI am not sure in what neighbourhood you live, but in my village there are hundreds of businesses with strong morals. From the local baker, to the electrician and the construction company. Many keep employees past their prime, they all invest heavily in local community events and sports. The owners don't do this because of money, but because in their view a fulfilled life is one where you serve your community. And yes they want to become rich and make money, but that is not all.
But it appears that is not how your world works. By default any company owner is a homo-sapiens, but a machine that only wants money. Tragically, your cynicism is creating the very world you hate.
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Your neighborhood examples are on an incomparably smaller scale than Meta et al.
It’s much easier to disregard the human cost of decisions when you are separated from said humans by thousands of miles & billions of dollars.
You're comparing small business to a corporation? Right.
But what happens when one of those businesses in your village strikes it big and becomes a multi-national baking good company. They hire a lot of MBAs, take investor money and then need to stay profitable to meet those obligations. Add to the fact that the people now running the business live nowhere near the village. Will they still make the most ethical decisions about keeping employees past their prime?, paying them a fair wage?
History shows this is not the case.
I'm happy for you to live in a place where the local economy is so vibrant. This is what capitalism should have been. Instead we got WallMart.
Bet none of them have a chief ethicist tho.
I know people like that, you are not wrong.
The problem is that corporations completely subvert any individual morality that might indicate that generating money is the only moral thing to do. Typically in small businesses. I comaider small businesses owners in general are a lot closer to labor than to capital owners in general terms, especially when their labor is still a large part of what keeps the business going.
Corporations are not that, those are hyper optimized for generating profits, all else be damned. Preferably if all else is damned.
I know. The local newspaper believes the same thing. And the local events are all sponsored by businesses. Who could question all of this evidence?
> But it appears that is not how your world works. By default any company owner is a homo-sapiens, but a machine that only wants money. Tragically, your cynicism is creating the very world you hate.
They said companies are amoral at best.
Many people have strong morals, and might resist profit-maximising behaviours, but they will be outcompeted and replaced by less scrupulous people. There is actually no sharp difference between a person and a one-person-company, but: to the degree a company is really a company and not just a person, it is amoral. If you disagree, please point to a moral backstop that would prevent any company from taking immoral acts. A few exist, but they are invariably resisted by the most powerful companies. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.