22 hours ago, Eiuol said:
You misunderstand. When I say nothing else, I mean they lack values and any purpose for their money. Of course it is great to make money for the sake of building wealth or attaining goals. I’m not talking about profit motive in general. I’m talking about making money divorced from human values.
It sounds like you might be trying to whitewash what I’m actually saying. It’s kind of flattering that such would be your response (thank you) but I really do mean that the exclusive purpose of a company should be to make money.
I distinctly remember listening to a lecture of Rand’s at one point in which she mentioned some textile company called Indian Head, and quoted its CEO as saying (roughly):
‘The purpose of this company is to maximize the wealth of its shareholders; not to make the best textiles or the best customer service or anything else. Those things might be necessary means towards the end of our stock value but means and ends must never be confused.’
That’s what I’m arguing for.
Now, to say that the goal of a company is profit is not to say that it must also be the highest goal of its employees, suppliers, customers or CEO; if any of those individuals held chasing profit as their highest goal then I’d consider it a psychological problem of some sort.
A company is not an individual, though; it’s a team of individuals who work together to make money. And to say that profit is the team’s only goal is to say that whenever its members are “on the clock” they must be focused on the pursuit of that one goal; no different from what it means to say that the purpose of a basketball team is to maximize points or that the purpose of an orchestra is to create beautiful music. Such goals will inevitably create lesser subgoals which are necessary in order to consistently reach them. Orchestra members should usually take good care of their instruments, just as factory workers should usually take good care of their equipment (and each other) - but only so far as they actually serve that higher goal. In situations where that goal calls for something else they must be abandoned (such as by overclocking a machine or smashing a guitar to bits).
And again, whoever owns a company is and should be free to set whatever goals they think it should have (including zany things like raising the minimum wage, enforcing preferred pronouns and even “being less white”). None of it should be a crime. But the further removed it is from the pursuit of profits the less honest of a goal it is and the less moral it becomes to work for or deal with that company.
You wouldn’t work for an allegedly non-profit organization that secretly funnelled buckets and buckets of profit to its leaders. Don’t deal with allegedly for-profit companies that operate in fact as political advocacy groups. Or with bands which have no interest in music, for that matter, or with “scientists” who have no interest in truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN47Figg8gQ
