So sad this has all come to prevail as it seems like all businesses are cast in the mold developed my Walmart and Milton Friedman, obsessed with maximizing stock price, minimizing costs, and forever squeezing their own workers when they cannot be jettisoned. The ironic reason it is sad is that just as most workers and potential workers are now way below average in income and upward mobility, inequality between businesses is similarly casting a dismal shadow on the prospect of prosperity for most enterprises. The single-winner phenomenon and the emergence of dominant firms in so many sectors has led to a situation where the typical start-up or median mature firm now looks forward to going out of business (being acquired) on terms of its own choosing; the mortality rate among venerable but average firms is high, and these regrettable conditions convince firms to follow the very strategies that cause the conditions.
