If those people don't own the company, what is the owner doing by allowing this to happen?
If those people _are_ the owners, then there shouldn't be a problem, since it's their own company, and they ought to be allowed to do anything they wish. Including short term reward for long term loss (if it is worth it in their eyes).
So i dont think it's "looting" (implying it's being stolen without knowledge of the owner).
Also viewing a company as just a collection of assets owned by capital can be somewhat limiting. Companies are generally made up of human employees, and many schools of thought treat employees as one of several stakeholders in a company and assign various rights to them and various responsibilities to the company for them.
Looking at it this way, the “owner” of a company can easily be described as looting the company if they are destroying a lot of value in the company for marginal benefit for themselves.
This problem is solved using the court system, and then legislation system. Things which _should_ be unacceptable needs to be made illegal. And over time, this has indeed been the case. Things like environmental regulations etc are the examples.
> various responsibilities to the company for them
i think the employees are reading too much into this responsibility, because the only responsibility the company has for the employees are the legals ones: such as OSHA, timely payment of wages, safety from harassment etc.
Longevity of the job, social responsibilities (such as improving the community etc), are all secondary to the financial success for the shareholders.
I think you're describing the way things are, while dwalling is talking about how things ought to be. There's no law of nature saying that companies can't or shouldn't behave socially responsibly.
Edit: I'm not advocating for socialism, not at all. There's a wide spectrum between pure laissez-faire capitalism and nationalization of all private property.
putting financial success for the shareholders above all is the reason for so many things wrong right now,
I 100% agree with you, but isn’t this how capitalism works?
I do notice similar sentiments to use more frequently on HN lately. Feels like people are actually aware there are problems now but unsure what’s to be done?
The model is that you can buy your way out of this slavery if you're talented (ruthless) and well-connected enough.
Otherwise you die, and no one - at least no one who matters - cares.
Can feel Lenin spinning in his tomb from here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
anyway in this case the term "looting" is meant to do things that will be of benefit to the people to the company that will in the short term maybe benefit the company but in the long term destroy it. The short term benefit often aligns with what benefits the looter, but this alignment is not hard and fast.
only agents acting on behalf of the owners have fiduciary duty. Of course, if you are a majority owner, but there exists minority owners, you cannot screw the minority owners to profit yourself - i guess this is a form of fiduciary duty.
But if you own it outright 100%, then you don't have such a fiduciary duty to yourself.
A company has no legal responsibility to maintain the livelihood of their employees at the cost of the business' profit margins.