Expecting public companies to do anything except optimize for shareholder value, is pure folly. We can debate morality all day, but there's a more practical reason for this: shareholders hold all the power over management. Regardless of how unhappy you as a customer/employee are, you do not have the direct power to fire the directors/executives. You only have the indirect power of pressuring the shareholders, and hoping they will pass it along.
Hence why CEOs and Board of Directors will optimize for shareholders interests above customers/employees/society. Because if they don't, they will get fired and get replaced with someone else who does. This is textbook Evolution and Natural Selection.
If we aren't happy with the way corporations are paying their employees, the solution has to come from outside the corporations. Demand that your government increase the minimum wage, increase the capital gains tax rates, raise tax rates for the 0.1%, and use the proceeds to fund basic income or a better social safety net. he private sector does a great job of generating wealth, but don't ever expect it to distribute it fairly.
Hence why CEOs and Board of Directors will optimize for shareholders interests above customers/employees/society. Because if they don't, they will get fired and get replaced with someone else who does. This is textbook Evolution and Natural Selection.
If we aren't happy with the way corporations are paying their employees, the solution has to come from outside the corporations. Demand that your government increase the minimum wage, increase the capital gains tax rates, raise tax rates for the 0.1%, and use the proceeds to fund basic income or a better social safety net. he private sector does a great job of generating wealth, but don't ever expect it to distribute it fairly.