most of us have heard about the frontiers of science, medicine whatever, lot of good stuff been happening for a long time now, I am wondering if it all happened entirely without some frontier of moral neglect, so if a person had to think about the frontiers of moral neglect what might they be? Or is the species all working nice together, no secret dark side to the good work.
transition said:
most of us have heard about the frontiers of science, medicine whatever, lot of good stuff been happening for a long time now, I am wondering if it all happened entirely without some frontier of moral neglect, so if a person had to think about the frontiers of moral neglect what might they be? Or is the species all working nice together, no secret dark side to the good work.
That information is on a need to know basis otherwise it’s classified.
Is there something else we can help you with, Sir?
transition said:
most of us have heard about the frontiers of science, medicine whatever, lot of good stuff been happening for a long time now, I am wondering if it all happened entirely without some frontier of moral neglect, so if a person had to think about the frontiers of moral neglect what might they be? Or is the species all working nice together, no secret dark side to the good work.
Profit before welfare of the planet.
Wealth and power are considered the pinnacle of human achievement and something to strive towards.
Stepping on the backs of the abused to achieve this is OK.
transition said:
most of us have heard about the frontiers of science, medicine whatever, lot of good stuff been happening for a long time now, I am wondering if it all happened entirely without some frontier of moral neglect, so if a person had to think about the frontiers of moral neglect what might they be? Or is the species all working nice together, no secret dark side to the good work.
My brain is not handling the notion at all. Could you give a few examples, so I can grasp it, please?
Cymek said:
transition said:
most of us have heard about the frontiers of science, medicine whatever, lot of good stuff been happening for a long time now, I am wondering if it all happened entirely without some frontier of moral neglect, so if a person had to think about the frontiers of moral neglect what might they be? Or is the species all working nice together, no secret dark side to the good work.Profit before welfare of the planet.
Wealth and power are considered the pinnacle of human achievement and something to strive towards.
Stepping on the backs of the abused to achieve this is OK.
Which major world religions preach that?
I’m beginning to think that the most evil person who ever lived was Milton Friedman. Maybe he himself wasn’t awful, IDK, but some of the ideas he came up with that have spread and been embraced are leading us down a terrible path.
I’m not terribly interested in economics, and I may have this all wrong, but here’s my understanding from the light reading I’ve been doing on the subject about the current state of the modern, capitalist world.
Capitalism can broadly be divided in to two types; stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism.
Capitalism as it existed before Friedman was closer to the stakeholder type. “Stakeholder capitalism is a business model or economic system where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. This includes employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment”. -googles AI overview.
Friedman was the first to popularize the notion that companies should prioritize profit and returns to their shareholders above all else. “Shareholder capitalism is an economic system where the primary goal of companies is to maximize value for their shareholders, primarily through profit and dividends.” -googles AI overview.
Shareholder capitalism takes a very short term view of things. Maximizing profits right now is more important even than ensuring the long term viability of a company, for example. The labour a company employs is seen as a cost to be minimized rather than a vital stakeholder group. Environmental impacts are something to be hidden rather than addressed head on. Companies exist to please their investors rather than their customers.
I can’t help but wonder if this shift from a broader sense of responsibility and humanity to a narrow focus on profit lies at the heart of a lot of what feels broken in the world today. Is there a way back? Or are we stuck in a system that no longer serves most of us?
esselte said:
I’m beginning to think that the most evil person who ever lived was Milton Friedman. Maybe he himself wasn’t awful, IDK, but some of the ideas he came up with that have spread and been embraced are leading us down a terrible path.I’m not terribly interested in economics, and I may have this all wrong, but here’s my understanding from the light reading I’ve been doing on the subject about the current state of the modern, capitalist world.
Capitalism can broadly be divided in to two types; stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism.
Capitalism as it existed before Friedman was closer to the stakeholder type. “Stakeholder capitalism is a business model or economic system where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. This includes employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment”. -googles AI overview.
Friedman was the first to popularize the notion that companies should prioritize profit and returns to their shareholders above all else. “Shareholder capitalism is an economic system where the primary goal of companies is to maximize value for their shareholders, primarily through profit and dividends.” -googles AI overview.
Shareholder capitalism takes a very short term view of things. Maximizing profits right now is more important even than ensuring the long term viability of a company, for example. The labour a company employs is seen as a cost to be minimized rather than a vital stakeholder group. Environmental impacts are something to be hidden rather than addressed head on. Companies exist to please their investors rather than their customers.
I can’t help but wonder if this shift from a broader sense of responsibility and humanity to a narrow focus on profit lies at the heart of a lot of what feels broken in the world today. Is there a way back? Or are we stuck in a system that no longer serves most of us?
I suspect you may be wearing rose-coloured glasses. What about the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc, (for examples)?
They were anything but kind to many of their stakeholders.
Michael V said:
esselte said:
I’m beginning to think that the most evil person who ever lived was Milton Friedman. Maybe he himself wasn’t awful, IDK, but some of the ideas he came up with that have spread and been embraced are leading us down a terrible path.I’m not terribly interested in economics, and I may have this all wrong, but here’s my understanding from the light reading I’ve been doing on the subject about the current state of the modern, capitalist world.
Capitalism can broadly be divided in to two types; stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism.
Capitalism as it existed before Friedman was closer to the stakeholder type. “Stakeholder capitalism is a business model or economic system where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. This includes employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment”. -googles AI overview.
Friedman was the first to popularize the notion that companies should prioritize profit and returns to their shareholders above all else. “Shareholder capitalism is an economic system where the primary goal of companies is to maximize value for their shareholders, primarily through profit and dividends.” -googles AI overview.
Shareholder capitalism takes a very short term view of things. Maximizing profits right now is more important even than ensuring the long term viability of a company, for example. The labour a company employs is seen as a cost to be minimized rather than a vital stakeholder group. Environmental impacts are something to be hidden rather than addressed head on. Companies exist to please their investors rather than their customers.
I can’t help but wonder if this shift from a broader sense of responsibility and humanity to a narrow focus on profit lies at the heart of a lot of what feels broken in the world today. Is there a way back? Or are we stuck in a system that no longer serves most of us?
I suspect you may be wearing rose-coloured glasses. What about the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc, (for examples)?
They were anything but kind to many of their stakeholders.
In fact I think the idea that large companies before Friedman were concerned with anything other than maximising profits is quite weird.
Companies these days treat their staff much better, and are subject to much greater control over their effects on the environment and local communities.
Michael V said:
esselte said:
I’m beginning to think that the most evil person who ever lived was Milton Friedman. Maybe he himself wasn’t awful, IDK, but some of the ideas he came up with that have spread and been embraced are leading us down a terrible path.I’m not terribly interested in economics, and I may have this all wrong, but here’s my understanding from the light reading I’ve been doing on the subject about the current state of the modern, capitalist world.
Capitalism can broadly be divided in to two types; stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism.
Capitalism as it existed before Friedman was closer to the stakeholder type. “Stakeholder capitalism is a business model or economic system where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. This includes employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment”. -googles AI overview.
Friedman was the first to popularize the notion that companies should prioritize profit and returns to their shareholders above all else. “Shareholder capitalism is an economic system where the primary goal of companies is to maximize value for their shareholders, primarily through profit and dividends.” -googles AI overview.
Shareholder capitalism takes a very short term view of things. Maximizing profits right now is more important even than ensuring the long term viability of a company, for example. The labour a company employs is seen as a cost to be minimized rather than a vital stakeholder group. Environmental impacts are something to be hidden rather than addressed head on. Companies exist to please their investors rather than their customers.
I can’t help but wonder if this shift from a broader sense of responsibility and humanity to a narrow focus on profit lies at the heart of a lot of what feels broken in the world today. Is there a way back? Or are we stuck in a system that no longer serves most of us?
I suspect you may be wearing rose-coloured glasses. What about the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc, (for examples)?
They were anything but kind to many of their stakeholders.
I think there’s maybe an argument that the people who suffered under these companies weren’t really regarded as stakeholders, but rather as exploitable resources. That’s not so much an indictment of the idea that capitalism was closer to the stakeholder model in the past as it is an observation that British and European colonial powers had understandings of what constituted a human being that differed markedly from our modern sensibilities.
I’m not suggesting capitalism before Friedman was all nicey-wicey to everybody or anything. Nor am I suggesting it resembled the modern understanding of stakeholder capitalism. Just that it didn’t subscribe to the extreme version of capitalism which seems to exist today which says profit is the only thing a capitalist should concern themselves with.
But yeah, I do acknowledge some very nasty stuff has happened in the past under the guise of capitalism.
The Rev Dodgson said:
Michael V said:
esselte said:
I’m beginning to think that the most evil person who ever lived was Milton Friedman. Maybe he himself wasn’t awful, IDK, but some of the ideas he came up with that have spread and been embraced are leading us down a terrible path.I’m not terribly interested in economics, and I may have this all wrong, but here’s my understanding from the light reading I’ve been doing on the subject about the current state of the modern, capitalist world.
Capitalism can broadly be divided in to two types; stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism.
Capitalism as it existed before Friedman was closer to the stakeholder type. “Stakeholder capitalism is a business model or economic system where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders, not just shareholders, when making decisions. This includes employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment”. -googles AI overview.
Friedman was the first to popularize the notion that companies should prioritize profit and returns to their shareholders above all else. “Shareholder capitalism is an economic system where the primary goal of companies is to maximize value for their shareholders, primarily through profit and dividends.” -googles AI overview.
Shareholder capitalism takes a very short term view of things. Maximizing profits right now is more important even than ensuring the long term viability of a company, for example. The labour a company employs is seen as a cost to be minimized rather than a vital stakeholder group. Environmental impacts are something to be hidden rather than addressed head on. Companies exist to please their investors rather than their customers.
I can’t help but wonder if this shift from a broader sense of responsibility and humanity to a narrow focus on profit lies at the heart of a lot of what feels broken in the world today. Is there a way back? Or are we stuck in a system that no longer serves most of us?
I suspect you may be wearing rose-coloured glasses. What about the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc, (for examples)?
They were anything but kind to many of their stakeholders.
In fact I think the idea that large companies before Friedman were concerned with anything other than maximising profits is quite weird.
It’s not a novel opinion of mine. Appropriate TATE-ing should support my contention.
This is kind of like the modern day idea that medieval serfs hated their Lords, or conscripted Victorian era soldiers hated their upper-class snotty-nosed Commanders. In a general sense, neither of these things is true and usually the opposite was the case.
esselte said:
The Rev Dodgson said:
Michael V said:I suspect you may be wearing rose-coloured glasses. What about the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, etc, (for examples)?
They were anything but kind to many of their stakeholders.
In fact I think the idea that large companies before Friedman were concerned with anything other than maximising profits is quite weird.
It’s not a novel opinion of mine. Appropriate TATE-ing should support my contention.
Too many kooks not enough time.
poikilotherm said:
esselte said:
The Rev Dodgson said:In fact I think the idea that large companies before Friedman were concerned with anything other than maximising profits is quite weird.
It’s not a novel opinion of mine. Appropriate TATE-ing should support my contention.
Too many kooks not enough time.
There was, like, court cases regarding this subject.
Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich 459; 170 NW 668 (1919), is a case in which the Michigan Supreme Court held that Henry Ford had to operate the Ford Motor Company in the interests of its shareholders, rather than in a manner for the benefit of his employees or customers. It is often taught as affirming the principle of “shareholder primacy” in corporate America, although that teaching has received some criticism.
By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a surplus of $60 million. The price of the Model T, Ford’s mainstay product, had been successively cut over the years while the wages of the workers had dramatically, and quite publicly, increased. The company’s president and majority stockholder, Henry Ford, sought to end special dividends for shareholders in favor of massive investments in new plants that would enable Ford to dramatically increase production, and the number of people employed at his plants, while continuing to cut the costs and prices of his cars. In public defense of this strategy, Ford declared:
My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.
While Ford may have believed that such a strategy might be in the long-term benefit of the company, he told his fellow shareholders that the value of this strategy to them was not a main consideration in his plans. The minority shareholders objected to this strategy, demanding that Ford stop reducing his prices when they could barely fill orders for cars and to continue to pay out special dividends from the capital surplus in lieu of his proposed plant investments. Two brothers, John Francis Dodge and Horace Elgin Dodge, owned 10% of the company, among the largest shareholders next to Ford.
The Court was called upon to decide whether the minority shareholders could prevent Ford from operating the company in the direction that he had declared.
esselte said:
poikilotherm said:
esselte said:Too many kooks not enough time.
There was, like, court cases regarding this subject.
Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich 459; 170 NW 668 (1919), is a case in which the Michigan Supreme Court held that Henry Ford had to operate the Ford Motor Company in the interests of its shareholders, rather than in a manner for the benefit of his employees or customers. It is often taught as affirming the principle of “shareholder primacy” in corporate America, although that teaching has received some criticism.
By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a surplus of $60 million. The price of the Model T, Ford’s mainstay product, had been successively cut over the years while the wages of the workers had dramatically, and quite publicly, increased. The company’s president and majority stockholder, Henry Ford, sought to end special dividends for shareholders in favor of massive investments in new plants that would enable Ford to dramatically increase production, and the number of people employed at his plants, while continuing to cut the costs and prices of his cars. In public defense of this strategy, Ford declared:
My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.While Ford may have believed that such a strategy might be in the long-term benefit of the company, he told his fellow shareholders that the value of this strategy to them was not a main consideration in his plans. The minority shareholders objected to this strategy, demanding that Ford stop reducing his prices when they could barely fill orders for cars and to continue to pay out special dividends from the capital surplus in lieu of his proposed plant investments. Two brothers, John Francis Dodge and Horace Elgin Dodge, owned 10% of the company, among the largest shareholders next to Ford.
The Court was called upon to decide whether the minority shareholders could prevent Ford from operating the company in the direction that he had declared.
So a good example of putting shareholders first well before Friedman, and I’m sure there are many and much earlier examples.
The Rev Dodgson said:
esselte said:
poikilotherm said:There was, like, court cases regarding this subject.
Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., 204 Mich 459; 170 NW 668 (1919), is a case in which the Michigan Supreme Court held that Henry Ford had to operate the Ford Motor Company in the interests of its shareholders, rather than in a manner for the benefit of his employees or customers. It is often taught as affirming the principle of “shareholder primacy” in corporate America, although that teaching has received some criticism.
By 1916, the Ford Motor Company had accumulated a surplus of $60 million. The price of the Model T, Ford’s mainstay product, had been successively cut over the years while the wages of the workers had dramatically, and quite publicly, increased. The company’s president and majority stockholder, Henry Ford, sought to end special dividends for shareholders in favor of massive investments in new plants that would enable Ford to dramatically increase production, and the number of people employed at his plants, while continuing to cut the costs and prices of his cars. In public defense of this strategy, Ford declared:
My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.While Ford may have believed that such a strategy might be in the long-term benefit of the company, he told his fellow shareholders that the value of this strategy to them was not a main consideration in his plans. The minority shareholders objected to this strategy, demanding that Ford stop reducing his prices when they could barely fill orders for cars and to continue to pay out special dividends from the capital surplus in lieu of his proposed plant investments. Two brothers, John Francis Dodge and Horace Elgin Dodge, owned 10% of the company, among the largest shareholders next to Ford.
The Court was called upon to decide whether the minority shareholders could prevent Ford from operating the company in the direction that he had declared.
So a good example of putting shareholders first well before Friedman, and I’m sure there are many and much earlier examples.
Huh?
You expressed doubts that before Friedman large companies might have priorities other than maximising profits and returns to shareholders.
Ford is an example of a large company that, before Friedman, had other priorities.
Ford was forced by the court to prioritise profit and returns to shareholders.
Friedman made the idea popular and ubiquitous.
Friedman made the idea popular that all the world’s ills could be cured by, or any area of government spending improved by: introducing competition and market forces, in some form or another.
It lead to the wave of privatisation beginning in the 1980s (Thatcherism, Reaganism, Keatingism etc) involving the sale of public assets, and then later the sort of pseudo-markets we get with electricity and communications services.
it should all have ended with the bust-up of Enron TBH. But there is a generational lag in the churn of orthodoxy. Just like there was a long gap between a young Thatcher reading Friedman in her student days and taking 25 years to put it into practice as PM.
esselte said:
The Rev Dodgson said:
esselte said:So a good example of putting shareholders first well before Friedman, and I’m sure there are many and much earlier examples.
Huh?
You expressed doubts that before Friedman large companies might have priorities other than maximising profits and returns to shareholders.
Ford is an example of a large company that, before Friedman, had other priorities.
Ford was forced by the court to prioritise profit and returns to shareholders.
Friedman made the idea popular and ubiquitous.
OK, so I was a little either-orist there, but that’s the forum way.
The point is that whatever Ford said, his actions were absolutely in the interests of the company shareholders, there were plenty of other companies around that didn’t even claim to give a shit about anything other than making money for the owners, and there are plenty of companies around today that claim to consider the well-being of their employees and the wider community.
Friedman may have been influential, but mainly by way of justification for rich people to continue doing what they always had.
The Rev Dodgson said:
esselte said:
The Rev Dodgson said:Huh?
You expressed doubts that before Friedman large companies might have priorities other than maximising profits and returns to shareholders.
Ford is an example of a large company that, before Friedman, had other priorities.
Ford was forced by the court to prioritise profit and returns to shareholders.
Friedman made the idea popular and ubiquitous.
OK, so I was a little either-orist there, but that’s the forum way.
The point is that whatever Ford said, his actions were absolutely in the interests of the company shareholders, there were plenty of other companies around that didn’t even claim to give a shit about anything other than making money for the owners, and there are plenty of companies around today that claim to consider the well-being of their employees and the wider community.
Friedman may have been influential, but mainly by way of justification for rich people to continue doing what they always had.
Just have to look at all the blooming almond farms popping up everywhere. Corporate investments that shareholders want their money from.
The only thing they are really specific about is the quantity of nuts they can get. The environment and other considerations such as the life of the trees and what happens with overwatering are not really. in the focus.