This is a very thoughtful comment. Thank you.
To expand a bit, I see business success as balancing the needs of four groups, whose needs are naturally in tension:
(1) Employees, who want the best pay, work conditions, job satisfaction, etc.
(2) Investors, who want the best financial return
(3) Suppliers, who want to be paid on time and want repeat business
(4) Customers, who want great products at the minimum price possible
I'm American. One thing I've noticed reading economic histories of the US, such as Reich's Supercapitalism, is how shareholder/profit-oriented US business became, around say, the late 1970s/early 1980s. This was the heyday of leveraged buyouts, and I can't help but think that, in terms of operating quality of US companies, there was indeed much trash to be taken out. Business was too cozy; customers and investors were getting a raw deal. You hear all these Mad Men-esque stories of sexual harassment, two-Martini lunches, expense accounts, and I can't help but think, man, the customers and investors must have gotten a pretty raw deal that employees could get away with that stuff (working so little, being distracted, wasting capital, making shoddy products).
I also think Japanese and German capitalism are more employee/manager-oriented than the US for various reasons.
In the end I think it depends on which group (of the four above) are culturally privileged. We hold investors in pretty high regard in the US vs. employees; it's very "capitalist". I have no idea whether it's right, but I think it's a useful insight. In the end I think it comes down to culture, and that US culture is pretty capitalist compared to say, France.
It didn't dawn on me that investors are only one constituency. For owner-operators, investors and managers are the same person, so of course, businesses would be operated (managed) for benefit of their investors; they're the same people.
But you're right, investors are only one group, you need to keep them happy, and that's done with profit. It's not a very important insight when investors = operators (most small businesses), but as the two groups diverge, such as when entrepreneurs use a lot of outside funding, I think "permission to continue" is a good way of looking at it.