John,

>Jim..
>
>At a level, we agree. No, Hell has not frozen over!!
>
There's something up, because I've found myself nodding agreement with virtually all of your statements for a good while now.

>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.

It would be good if the plethora of market commentators/analysts would say that once in a while. Generally they focus on the current/next quarter and 'encourage' people to look for changes (layoffs, etc.) to "address" the bottom line "problems".

>Sacraficing profits in the name of social responsibility and "doing the right thing" - as nebulous as that may seem, is what good companies do.
>
Agreed. It's just that fewer and fewer are practising such, apparently. As one other commented in this thread, 'once a competitor cheats, you have no choice but to do the same'. I think that's an over-simplification but does convey one major source of this change that is growing.

>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.
>
I don't think I was advocating taking the power away from the decision makers. It may have come across that way, but wasn't meant to. I was advocating for those of us who are like-minded (that integrity and responsibility to stakeholders matters too) to stop using "their job is to make a profit for their owners" and to question for details anyone who does say it.
"Stock holder can mandate change..." is, in my opinion, a fallacy too. Of course I agree that they can, but the likelihood is that they won't. I say this because personal stockholders are very difficult to marshall to a concensus and to actually submit proxies or vote, while institutional shareholders have no trouble here. Add to this the fact that funds managers' primary job is to make as much money as possible, giving them the excuse they need to vote for instant profits and against corporate altruism/largess.

>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.
>
A job that's getting harder and harder to achieve as the corporations take over (real) world control and lean more and more to deception to increase profit at any cost.
For the record, I think capitalism has been a fine system. I am worried at where it is going, though, and at the ever-shrinking power of an individual to do anything about it.

JimN


>>>SNIP
>>
>>Doug,
>>
>>Looks like we agree on the basics.
>>
>>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.
>>
>>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".
>>
>>I see a possible solution as stopping to use that phrase and questioning for precise details whenever someone else uses it to justify something.
>>
>>Jim