Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
The fundamental directive of any corporation is NOT to maximize profit over all other considerations. If that were the case, then the majority of pro-capitalists would argue in favor of child-labor, wage-slavery, and other immoral methods to maximize profit.
Most people do not seriously argue in favor of these things because they recognize that there are more considerations than just "maximize profit no matter what".
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With respect, the above is a non-sequitur. It does not follow from the fact that most pro-capitalists do not argue in favor of these things that it is not the duty of a corporation to maximize profit. In fact, to argue in favor of these things openly would most likely jeopardize the public image of whichever corporation or business interest the arguer is representing. This does not change the fact that these practices are still quite frequently used and that corporations with major clout benefit from them. I don't know how you define wage-slavery, but I imagine the sweat-shop practices that are common in much of latin America and south-east Asia would certainly qualify. The garment factories active in the Middle East, both in Israel and the Arab world, frequently use practices that differ little from outright slavery (such as stealing passports and using the threat of the police to extort extra labor and to get away with horrendous conditions). The struggle against child labour and for the eight hour day were class struggles waged by the workers themselves to regain some kind of control in the work place; they were not the gift of benign captains of industry. The fact that we find these practices problematic is indicative of two things: one, subjectively, we realize that we are far more likely to harmed by these practices than to benefit from them (i.e. we do have some class allegiance, however vestigial), and two, the widespread consensus on these issues, backed up by statute, serves to blind us to the fact that these practices are not just aberrations, but par for the course. Corporations frequently break the law or engage in behaviors that are harmful to the public when the accountants calculate that doing so will bring a greater profit than not doing so, after subtracting losses due to lawsuits, fines, bad publicity, etc. This is quite frequent in the financial world, as we all found out in 2008 (and are still in the midst of discovering). This practice in regards to the recall of potentially dangerous products is proverbial (having been popularized by the novel and movie Fight Club). That all being said, you'd be surprised at how quickly the pendulum can swing back: there was quite the hullabaloo in the news media over the winter about attempts to scale back child labor laws in various states in the US.