Sometimes, however, I do get incredible bursts of focused working inspiration. Today is not one of those days.
I am rather pressed for time, mid-terms are cropping up, and I am behind on my work. I still get everything that happens in classes, but no matter how interesting most of my subjects are, certain teachers manage to mess it all up. Also, all the discussion classes seem determined to make us complete 15-20 examples for each class, with two classes on Tuesdays and two more on Thursdays in addition to the usual lectures we all need to attend.
I think that we should limit the amount of possible shareholders per company and reinstate a responsibility for the companies you are a shareholder of. I will try to the best of my ability to describe why, below:
Businesses that are not owned by anyone in particular are not as bound by moral and ethical approaches. Businesses that are owned by too many individuals also lack these moral and ethical approaches, mostly focusing on maximized profits and nothing much else.
So, instead of staying in the current setup, with corporations largely owned by scrupulous, irresponsible shareholders or changing to a communistic setup, where all businesses become some sort of public property, I say that we should aim for something in between. With corporations owned by a limited amount of people, where each owner can only own a decided percentage of the company, we could justfully reinstate owner liability for the company's actions.
My aim is to find a balance, where the corporations would be forced to become more aware of their surroundings, and less focused on maximizing profits at all costs.
In our present-day world, many issues, which didn't exist a few years ago, have incredible impact on our lives. Environmental issues, ethical issues and a more effective journalistic approach (In some countries at least) are but a few of the recently awakened impacts on the way businesses are run.
By applying the method mentioned above, I would hope that the claims raised against businesses might gain more attention. People generally tend to tread more carefully when their own names can be dragged through the mud should the business simply ignore all the social requests tossed at it.
Also, if businesses were divided more evenly, most people would have the opportunity to be part-owners of such companies, meaning that the demands put upon the companies would become more reasonable, seeing as most people would know all aspects of the cases better.
Basically, what I want is for businesses to seize their responsibilities at the same time as I want the general populace to look into all cases before making unreasonable demands. Wishful thinking? Perhaps. But at least now I managed to get it all out before Smari's friend huffs and shuns my ideas by making some presumptuous statement... (No offense, he's probably very smart, I just dislike being brushed aside in an equal discussion.)
Feel free to huff and shun now, via comments by the way.
1 comments:
Well.. public ownership isn't exactly the point. It's more about the question of "what is a company?", "what is a business?" and "what is property?"
The problem, in my mind, isn't who owns the companies but rather that they should be owned at all (rather than merely collectively conducted by its employees) and, since they are owned, that the company's primary obligation be not to conduct business but to increase shareholder value.
All the brain-damages of the corporate structure come not from the fact that there are people behind the corporations making products and selling them and so on, but rather from the fact that the work potential and the ability of the workers to predict and fulfill demands made by the market is treated as a commodity of greater value to be sold and bartered with.
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