Nailed it. At the end of the day, companies are automatons. It is up to use to update the reward and punishment functions to get the behaviour we desire. Behaviourism 101
It's the idea that individuals and institutions must somehow fix society from the top down or the outside in, which history has shown doesn't work. No one is going to come along and make you be sensitive or intelligent, either you see the predicament we're all in and act, or you rationalize your selfish actions and make them someone else's problem.
I didn’t say that, nor do I mean that.
My point is this: don’t be surprised when people or organizations act rationally according to the situations they find themselves in.
Go ahead and blame people and see if that solves anything! What is your theory for change? Mine is about probabilistic realism.
Ethics matters, of course. We can dislike how some (one/org) acts — and then what do we do? Hoping they act better is not a good plan.
I see it over and over — people label something as unethical and say e.g. “they shouldn’t do that” and that’s the end of the conversation. That is not a plan. Shame and guilt can have an effect on people, but often only has a small effect on organizations.
Here’s a start: look at the long-term stock exchange (Eric Ries) and see how it’s doing in trying to align corporate behavior with what meshes better with what people want.
On a human level, people are held to a set of laws and exist in a world of social norms. "Following orders" is of course not the most important goal in most contexts; it is not the way most people think of their own ethics (hopefully) nor the way society wants people to behave. Even in military contexts, there is often the notion of a "lawful order".
When it comes to public for-profit companies, they are expected to generate a profit for their shareholders and abide by various laws, including their own charters. To demand or expect them to do more than this is foolish. Social pressure can help but is unreliable and changes over time. To expect that a few humans will step up to be heros exactly when we need them and "save the day" from a broken system is wishful thinking. We have to do better than this. Blaming something that is the statistical norm is scapegoating. In many/most situations, the problem is the system, not the actors.