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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Businesses exist to milk you of as much of your money as possible.

How sad. I wonder if OP actually believes this or if it was just part of his rant. Or maybe he didn't get enough hugs from his first boss.

I'd like to think that there are still many of us who need to earn enough to insure continuation of business without sacrificing our souls or the original purpose of all our hard work.

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Are you perhaps unfamiliar with capitalism?

I do not think it is somehow a controversial statement that employees of a corporation have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximize profit. He may have stated it in a controversial or misleading way, but it is not untrue.

Additionally, it seems you have interpreted it as some sort of polemic regarding work/life balance, an interpretation which I do not believe is supported by the text.

To be fair, there's a difference here between a publicly-traded corporation and, say, a mom-and-pop hardware store. A publicly-traded corporation can be sued for not extracting the most possible money, which is in line with the OP. A smaller store with few or no external investors can run itself as it damn well pleases, assuming it stays solvent.

My understanding is it applies whether the company is private or public so long as there are any external investors involved.

Capitalism is not about "milk(ing) you of as much of your money as possible." Yes, maximize revenue within the context of the law and ethics. His comment about milking people of all possible is the hallmark of charlatans and con men.

Have you been paying attention to the sorts of people at the top of our capitalistic society? There are precious few who are notable for not being charlatans and con men.

Ethics are for the poor, and laws can be circumvented, re-written, or present only minor speedbumps (profit for law-breaking = $100; fine = $10 => BREAKIN' THE LAW!)

Well, "maximize revenue within the context of the law and ethics." leads to a standard of manipulating legal policy however possible and defining subjective values like "ethics" in the a context favorable to an organizations motives.

Any company that can't or won't do these things is at a severe disadvantage to the competition.

If you do something for "ethics" in a corporation, you have to be able to show that it is visible to the outside world and that in the end it will thereby increase your profits. For instance, envision an executive at a company giving an anonymous donation (of the company's money) to a charity with no conceivable connection to the business itself. There would be an immediate shareholder lawsuit.

The only places where the courts are touchy on this is religious-y things, like a policy of closing on Sundays.

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