And it wasn't ever thus, either. Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. really screwed things up.
Contrary to what a lot of other commenters are saying, the shareholder primacy rule is relatively recent (basically since the 80s), and before that there was broad recognition that corporate boards could balance the interests of various stakeholders. This essay also argues that Dodge v Ford Motor (which was in the Michigan Supreme Court) actually had little practical impact - it was cases like Unocal and Revlon in the Delaware courts that had a much bigger impact on actual board behavior in the US.
I'd also question whether there is actually going to be a meaningful check on any of OpenAI's actions, compared to what there would be for a for-profit corporation. I'd bet no.
The amazing thing is that the pursuit of personal enrichment, when regulated in moderation, tends to create a system that is in the public’s benefit. So we allow companies that are self interested because that, at scale, actually supports the public benefit more than requiring all companies to do specific things mandated as for the public benefit.
Tends is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
The model of "Let's have the worst people do whatever they want, for the most selfish possible reasons, and hope for the best" has also produced a horrific amount of suffering. Crazy amounts of socialized externalized losses get hand-waved away.
Nope, it's also 27th in social mobility[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
Yes, fully socialist countries seem to be doing even worse, but so many of the good parts of my employment contract came from the New Deal and its wild success shows in everything from the infrastructure to the demographic charts that are still defined by echoes of the baby boom! It's no wonder the businessmen got together and tried to coup FDR and have spent the last 50 years trying to wind back these policies. We don't need a Glorious Revolution but we do need another Roosevelt.
I sure hear a lot of faux-market fascists telling me how to live these days.
This is a profoundly unserious framing. Suffering is the default state of man, and our current system has done far more to eradicate said suffering than any other.
The historical alternative system was voluntarily abandoned by all of its impoverished practitioners in favor of the current system.
The current "alternative" to our system is just our system with high taxes.
Just take the L.
This seems like gaslighting. Of all the takes, "You were meant to suffer, so if I made you suffer and then I did stuff to reduce the suffering you should be grateful" is certainly one of them.
What an awful and depressing view to hold. I hope one day you find a small piece of happiness in your life.
Things used to be worse, and our default state is “suffering” so we should give up, stop here and lick the boots of the current, obviously flawed system? That doesn’t even make sense as an argument.
Capitalism is good at avoiding boondoggles but it's a sucker for asset pumps. We don't have to pay heavy taxes to support a gigantic network of high-speed trains to nowhere but we do have to pay monopoly rents on land, two-sided markets, Metcalfe-law networks, and so on.
Would the Coca-Cola company be allowed to exist in this world? Are professional sports team good for society?
This would sidestep the problem of:
> but what about all the stuff in the middle
Perhaps we also could list 5 which we think are having a positive impact. The assets of the bad ones could be auctioned off to the good ones, the money made from that auction could go towards severance for anyone whose job was dissolved.
The phrase "requiring benefit" is doing a huge amount of heavy lifting in this statement by assuming benefit is something that can easily be agreed upon, or that it's not already taken into account.
Since it will obviously be difficult to agree on this, what if we just vote? I'd propose a system where each of us gets a certain amount of tokens, and then we use our tokens to vote on which products are beneficial. Those companies that make beneficial products will receive the most tokens. They can distribute some of them to their employees and shareholders. The companies that don't provide enough benefit will naturally go under as they fail to accumulate enough tokens to attract employees. We can also set up systems to ensure that everyone receives a minimum number of tokens, and also so that certain people don't accumulate so many tokens as to give them too much control over society.
I believe this system will work well for rewarding companies which produce benefits and punishing those who don't and look forward to it being implemented.
Coca-Cola could easily be a PBC, so could pro sports teams. It just gives you the freedom to shut down short-sighted activist shareholders who can't see past next quarter. It doesn't require you to be Mother Teresa, it just doesn't let anyone punish you if you decide that's what you want to be.
Yes occasionally corporate owners and managers do bad things, and escape serious financial consequences due to the liability shield. So what. That is an acceptable consequence considering all of the other benefits.