Jim..

At a level, we agree. No, Hell has not frozen over!!

In business, you have two opposing groups: stake holders and stock holders. Who are boards of directors responsible to? In a pure sense, boards are responsible to the stock holders. Unfortunately, short-term decisions that can benefit stock holders can hurt the stake holders (employees, surrounding community, etc.). Of course, the fallacy is that there is quite a bit of overlap between stock and stake holders.

Short term greed for cash and profits is not in the formula of success. Sacraficing profits in the name of social responsibility and "doing the right thing" - as nebulous as that may seem, is what good companies do.

That said, as far as making a mandate to take the power away from the decision makers in business is a difficult. I am a capitalist at heart. As consumers, we can vote with our pocket books after all. Stock holders can mandate change via their voting rights.

With all of this in mind, I will always respect a company's right to run its business as it sees fit. It is the responsibilty of the world at large to use its power to keep a business in check.

>>SNIP
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>Doug,
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>Looks like we agree on the basics.
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>My main point is that, very soon now I believe, we will really have to take away that line of "making profit for their owners" as justification for business decisions. This is because it has come to mean two different things to two widely disparate groups of individuals.
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>The 'moral/altruistic" group uses it in the traditional sense while the (growing too fast) business leaders group (and their sycophants) use it as 'code' to mean "go ahead and do whatever it takes regardless of the external concequences".
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>I see a possible solution as stopping to use that phrase and questioning for precise details whenever someone else uses it to justify something.
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>Jim