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this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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They've always been this way.
Companies as entities have no conscience and aren't subject to the same punishments as people.
If money is the sole driving factor then morality and ethics aren't concerns unless they have a negative impact on the bottom line.
Since sociopaths are common and commonly get the highest positions in corporations, they will lead the company in the direction of most profit or growing stock price, with all other concerns as irrelevant.
If companies could enslave people they would make a lot more money and it is only law and the potential pushback affecting their profits that would give them pause. (See: the south pre 1860s, as well as numerous highly exploitative factories around the globe that made outsourcing so popular).
If they could kill people to make more money, overall, they would do so (see: insurance companies)
The more money a corporation has the better chance it has of bribing officials, buying favors, lobbying for favorable laws (or removing unfavorable ones), i.e. regulatory capture.
I haven't put a ton of thought into this but I think corporations and the lack of legal ramifications of breaking the law are major failings in modern capitalism. If a corporation breaks the law it should be sentenced to "jail" where it basically can't sell, buy, earn, etc during the sentence. In most cases that would destroy it. In extreme cases it should be executed (disbanded).
Another good point of distinction -- they aren't chasing the highest profits, they're chasing the highest short term profits. There is no universe where the cost of a massive failure is less than the cost of proper safety measures for instance, but because the execs don't care about the long run, they'll cut safety for temporary profit. They aren't running these companies to be sustainable, but to squeeze as much value out as quickly as they can.
It's a giant fucking shame, because focusing on the long run would actually be way more employee and environmentally friendly.