Originally posted by Falcon Horus
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There's a reason why e.g. whistleblowers often get (legal) protection and even then, it rarely happens. (e.g. how much shady **** could the NSA do before finally someone decided it was enough?)
Originally posted by SoulReaver
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The point of companies is to make money. This has the useful side-effect that they are self optimizing, ie they try to make more money which usually leads to greater efficiency across the board. Sometimes this leads to the betterment of humankind (ie cheaper resources). Sometimes this leads to the detriment of humankind (pollution). It's not in a company's interest to reduce pollution because it costs money and they have no interest in the area they pollute. They have no interest in their employees beyond their employment, no interest in the future beyond the immediate future.
If it costs more money than it gains, then the company has no interest in it period. Apple uses cheap child labour which is destroying human lives - but since China's only interest is growth, they don't care. So Apple has access to cheap labor and no risks so they do it. Chemical industries have no interest in the safe disposal of waste because it costs money and gains them nothing. Other producers have no interest in the health of their costumers: Tobacco paid off scientists, Lead Industry paid off scientists, Sugar industry is doing it and the Oil companies are doing it. Exxon knew for decades that they were massively impacting the environment -and paid off anyone that could expose this.
Why all this? Because it's cheaper to bribe a few people than to safely and responsibly deal with this stuff. This is where the government comes in, which executes it's power to prevent this shady ****. E.g. environmental and safety to ensure employees aren't trash and the environment isn't soaking in acid and heavy metals. This is a valuable service to everyone, and we pay for that service in the form of tax.
This is ideal-world stuff, and there are always grey areas: Government abuses power, Companies abuse money, and with costumers they form a neat triangle that interacts and abuses each other. What we disagree on is the relative size and freedom of each component. Everything has trade-offs. Bigger governments offer greater health and safety but also more red tape. More freedom does the opposite. Citizen's benefits change depending on the system.
In an ideal world this triangle is in balance: They protect and limit each other. (IE Government needs votes from citizens and money from companies. Companies are limited by law and customers, which can also make their goal possible. Citizens have jobs from companies and protection from the government).
In an overly capitalistic world, companies are free to do whatever they want, and we get Industrial Revolution-type situations: People are used, underpaid and thrown away like trash. There's no regard for long-term effects or the environment so if your fish population dies from chemical sludge, you can't do anything.
In an overly regulated world the government is so stuck in red tape that it becomes impossible to do anything. Communism robbed people of any incentive to thrive and improve.
In a world with the people at power, it's essentially anarchy as it lacks central command of just about any form, as any conglomeration of citizens quickly takes shape as either a company (making money) or a government (taking power).
In an ideal world there's a bit of each. There will be 9 billion people in the 50's and we somehow have to make do. We are changing the climate, we are polluting the environment, and until we can make it clear to companies that yes, the environment is an asset to them and yes, employees are an asset to them, we need big bad government to regulate stuff.
There are signs that this change is happening. It'll likely mean a different world where things are rented rather than owned. After all, if you sell cars you want them to break down eventually. But if you rent cars you want the least amount of effort to keep them running, which means quality cars that use little fuel and are cheap and easy to maintain.
As a final means: What we need is Ethical capitalism. That is, that companies are aware and willing to act on their responsibility to the people and the environment. That's not the capitalism we have, but it is the one we need, and we'll need it even more. I've seen people suggest that there should be a totally free market without regulations alltogether, but fail to mention that it requires that companies act in an ethical way, which isn't the way they've acted in the past.
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