@Cal? I think there are some fundamental incentive problems with the concept of fiduciary duty - that every corporation is obligated to maximize every single ounce of profit out of an enterprise for shareholders.
There is the well known problem of dispersed environmental costs like pollution. There is no proper mechanism that addresses the fact that any corporation whose sole goal is to maximize profit is going have the incentive to wantonly pollute and in fact do anything immoral/illegal they can get away with - dangerous labour conditions solely to cut labour costs and increase profits. Then you have the problem that this fiduciary duty scheme incentivizes planned obsolescence which inherently strips value from consumers.
So ultimately the core problem with this scheme of valuing shareholder profits so much is that the cost of elevating shareholder profit harms society as a whole, wage workers of all forms, consumers and specific communities that are all collateral damage sacrificed for the holy goal of maximizing shareholder profits. When the investor class sets the rules that are supposed to provide a check and balance all it does is increase the inequality because by design corporations protect shareholders from any actual responsibility for unfairness, dangerous labour conditions, environmental damage from pollution, etc. They are completely insulated from risk and thus never pay the consequences because by design shareholders can never get sued. So it becomes this tricky scheme to avoid any accountability. If a corporation causes billions in monetary damage and health problems in human damage, the shareholders waltz away just losing a fraction of their investment wealth but bearing no responsibility for the ultimate cost of their pursuit in coin accumulation, certainly not bearing that cost themselves.
The leisure class has stripped a lot of fair value from the bottom 90% by socializing the risk across all of society while privatizing the profits solely for themselves. The 'economy is booming' yet most are still struggling to make ends meet up. All this unemployment single data point mentions but no talk of how much under-employment there is. Sure people can get "a job" but there is a problem when the available jobs don't cover costs of living. So no, shareholders do not deserve all the profit and elevating them above all else has caused a lot more damage than good for the vast majority of people.
There is the well known problem of dispersed environmental costs like pollution. There is no proper mechanism that addresses the fact that any corporation whose sole goal is to maximize profit is going have the incentive to wantonly pollute and in fact do anything immoral/illegal they can get away with - dangerous labour conditions solely to cut labour costs and increase profits. Then you have the problem that this fiduciary duty scheme incentivizes planned obsolescence which inherently strips value from consumers.
So ultimately the core problem with this scheme of valuing shareholder profits so much is that the cost of elevating shareholder profit harms society as a whole, wage workers of all forms, consumers and specific communities that are all collateral damage sacrificed for the holy goal of maximizing shareholder profits. When the investor class sets the rules that are supposed to provide a check and balance all it does is increase the inequality because by design corporations protect shareholders from any actual responsibility for unfairness, dangerous labour conditions, environmental damage from pollution, etc. They are completely insulated from risk and thus never pay the consequences because by design shareholders can never get sued. So it becomes this tricky scheme to avoid any accountability. If a corporation causes billions in monetary damage and health problems in human damage, the shareholders waltz away just losing a fraction of their investment wealth but bearing no responsibility for the ultimate cost of their pursuit in coin accumulation, certainly not bearing that cost themselves.
The leisure class has stripped a lot of fair value from the bottom 90% by socializing the risk across all of society while privatizing the profits solely for themselves. The 'economy is booming' yet most are still struggling to make ends meet up. All this unemployment single data point mentions but no talk of how much under-employment there is. Sure people can get "a job" but there is a problem when the available jobs don't cover costs of living. So no, shareholders do not deserve all the profit and elevating them above all else has caused a lot more damage than good for the vast majority of people.
these fecking people are so predictable