>I don't like it when CEO's flavor their koolaid with lofty missions, while simultaneously looking to maximize profits.
Why not? In a capitalist society, it's the only real hope for linking economic output to "the greater good".
As long as companies think it good PR to even pretend to have a loftier goal, then there is incentive for creating and operating companies that actually do. This can only be good. Shouldn't we want them to have this incentive?
Or, would we prefer a society wherein we give social license to all corporations to behave like blatantly psychotic entities--whose only goal is profit--imbued with corporate personhood, and wielding the bulk of the economic, political, and societal power?
If you have evidence that contradicts what these CEOs have said, then please raise it. But, it's socially counter-productive to issue a blanket condemnation of any CEO at the helm of a for-profit enterprise who expresses a desire to do social good.
> Or, would we prefer a society wherein we give social license to all corporations to behave like blatantly psychotic entities--whose only goal is profit
I would prefer a society where we all accept that this is the only thing corporations are capable of being and then structure the legal systems in which they operate to ensure that their actions don't contradict "the greater good". "Psychotic entities whose only goal is profit" will do fine in any environment, despite lamentations to the contrary.
The PR incentives you're talking about only incentivize companies to look like they're doing nice things. Sometimes the easiest way to achieve that goal is to actually do nice things, but not always.
(Thought experiment) I think its easier to frame what that legal structure should be if we agree on what Profit actually means. If I define profit as: Provide goods and / or services people want in a sustainable fashion -- does that impact the story? E.g. if its not profitable (generally), is it sustainable? (I think no). But the converse is clearly not true as profits can be sought at the expense of something less obvious (say, environment).
Profit is the accumulation of capital. What you've described is a way of pursuing profit. Outside of economics, I think the word "profit" is meaningless.
As you've demonstrated, however, there are two conflicting senses of the word "sustainable". Sustainability for a business means that it accumulates more capital than it expends. Sustainability for human beings is a much fuzzier notion that is tied up in the idea of health: the health of the individual, of our species, and of our environment. We can sacrifice health from these areas to reach different goals, but if our actions continuously deplete it, then they aren't sustainable.
Is it possible to express the human sense of sustainability systematically? I'm not convinced it is, as I think it requires vision and sensitivity to understand health. So I think we need a legal structure which is sensitive in this way in order to create a sustainable society.
>and then structure the legal systems in which they operate to ensure that their actions don't contradict "the greater good
Ideally, sure, that sounds great. But it has, thus far, proven to be unworkable. The drive for profit supersedes virtually all else, and much "not good" has been done for that cause. Worse, there has been little to no recompense, even when the public good has been harmed egregiously.
In spite of this, even now, a major ideology says that we need to roll-back what regulations there are.
The political and economic climate don't currently exist to implement what you advocate, but, I do think it's a worthwhile effort. In the meantime, I don't see the downside to encouraging companies to be more socially-oriented, and rewarding those that actually are.
For me personally, I would rather corporations be honest with their customers, investors, and employees. I know it's unfair to generalize but the average behavior of corporations in the last few, well forever, hasn't been good. Forgive me for being skeptical.
I agree and believe that your skepticism is definitely warranted. IMO, that's exactly why we need to encourage more social enterprise and an environment wherein having a mission is a good thing. We just need to do a better job of holding companies to account.
So, it's the blanket condemnation that's the problem. If every CEO who claims to have a vision for something "good" is immediately met with skepticism, allegations, and outright anger, I don't think it takes us to a good place.
I confess to taking this a little personally. My business is concerned with social good and we get a good bit of this. Meanwhile, businesses that run rampantly over their customers and everyone else in pursuit of profit get less scrutiny, as it's expected behavior.
It's a perversion of incentives and a self-fulfilling prophecy. In my view, skepticism is healthy, but irredeemable cynicism is hopeless.
Talk is cheap, is the thing; without any enforcement that the CEO is doing what they say, it's correct to treat their claims as worthless. When we see substantive action there's less scepticism - e.g. Etsy is legally structured in such a way that social good can be a higher priority for them, and the reaction to that was generally very positive.
In private enterprise I believe it is perfectly acceptable to champion a social cause.
However when a company goes public it does in fact become"psychotic entity". It eschews its social cause in pursuit of funding, and supplants it with a single minded focus on profits for shareholders.
That is why PR exist as an industry, to convince consumers that the initial social cause is the primary motivation behind the company's actions. This is a lie.
>As long as companies think it good PR to even pretend to have a loftier goal, then there is incentive for creating and operating companies that actually do. This can only be good. Shouldn't we want them to have this incentive?
Transparent BS like this alienates insiders when it isn't based on substance. I'd say it hurts Twitter as an organization.
Why not? In a capitalist society, it's the only real hope for linking economic output to "the greater good".
As long as companies think it good PR to even pretend to have a loftier goal, then there is incentive for creating and operating companies that actually do. This can only be good. Shouldn't we want them to have this incentive?
Or, would we prefer a society wherein we give social license to all corporations to behave like blatantly psychotic entities--whose only goal is profit--imbued with corporate personhood, and wielding the bulk of the economic, political, and societal power?
If you have evidence that contradicts what these CEOs have said, then please raise it. But, it's socially counter-productive to issue a blanket condemnation of any CEO at the helm of a for-profit enterprise who expresses a desire to do social good.