Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla
True enough -- but what is inherent in business to require that form of company paternalism that built the coal company towns? I say there's nothing. Recall those towns began as a try at improvement upon what had been before. That they decayed into pervasive dependency is something separate from that.
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The prime directive for both people and of businesses is survival.
But without people there obviously would be no businesses. The reverse is not true.
So people are at a higher priority, and businesses must remain subservient.
There are two inherent aspects of business that cause imbalance and work to the disadvantage of people.
The first and foremost aspect of business is that it's sole requirement for survival is to make a $ profit.
All other activities in which a business might engage are therefore, by definition, secondary.
Some forms of business (sole proprietorships, partnerships, etc) keep the owners in a position of responsibility for "secondary" activities.
But in the corporation form, the owners (stock holders) only liability is to the extent of their $ investment of the initial stock purchase.
The corporations Board of Directors, officers, managers, and employees are responsible only for the profit-making activity.
Even when a corporation does something illegal, it's BoD, officers and subordinates are rarely found culpable,
and financial penalty on the corporation books is the only remedy.
This inequality is especially true when the secondary activities of a business falls in the area of ethics.
When people are affected negatively by the activities of the corporation then have little or no recourse,
and so business fails in some degree to it's first raison d'être.