Should Companies Put Profits Before Social Responsibility? | Intellections

The belief that corporations should prioritize social responsibility over profits is misguided for two reasons. First, it falsely assumes that prioritizing profits means treating employees poorly. Second, companies that don’t make money risk not being able to pay their employees. Ultimately, the best defense for workers is for there to be a healthy and competitive market.

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[Michael-mhtw]

A corporation will NEVER, read carefully; NEVER put 'social responsibility' before profit. A corporation's only duty is to make profit. If you regulate it, it will follow regulations. If a business thinks it will profit from marketing itself in a way that appeals to 'social responsibility' concerns, it will do so. However, a company will never take a loss in revenue that it doesn't have a plan to make back, simply because of some ideological principle. Anyone who believes they would is naive at best.

[sgh]

Labor standards have literally risen despite corporations lobbying for it not to and people protesting their hearts out.

[Matandery]

Instead of presenting it as an either/or choice, society and governments should tie the two together, incentivizing companies to take social responsibility by giving them business benefits if they do. A simplified example is tax reductions for companies that use more green energy and recycled materials.

[IF]

A very short, high level take on an extremely complex and nuanced subject regarding the interaction of business, society, governance and morality. I give this synopsis a D+ at best. Not your best work.

[odensama]

In this video, the use of straw man fallacy is risen to an insidious level. Anyway, I would just highlight three main fallacies in this very short and biased presentation:
-First, the assumption that "when a company prioritize profit it does not necessary mean they treat their employees badly" is almost a propagandist mantra. It goes without saying that from the Gilded age period to nowadays, the succession of laws and regulations were firstly aimed to cushion the first damage that companies perpetrate in their quest of profit maximization: employees unhuman working conditions.
-Secondly, the affirmation that in competitive market when employees are treated badly, they go elsewhere is just very untrue. In reality, perfect competition does not exist, and practically we have market structures that are in imperfect (monopoly, oligopoly, in best scenarios monopolistic competition). Therefore, the term competitive market must be nuanced. More importantly, the relative inelasticity of labor supply in relation to the demand of labor in the majority of labor markets make the assumption in which “workers go elsewhere” in practice untrue.
-Finally, assuming that “companies that don’t comply with the law or operate unethically are either fine or shut down” is the height of fantasy, nothing could be farther from the reality.

[yeetdiscreet]

The way I see it, companies should keep social responsibility out of their list of priorities. If they want to be profitable, social responsibility will come naturally, without them having to put any emphasis on it. If they do the opposite, they will end up losing money we’re going under and they won’t be successful. Simple as that. In a capitalistic society… Money talks. Successful companies are profitable because customers buy from them frequently. Customers don’t typically buy long-term from companies that deal with their customers or communities in shady or unfair manner. They should focus on being profitable first and foremost and leave social responsibility out of it.

Again, if a company is doing it right, the social responsibility part will come naturally without them having to focus on it – – similar to a child being labeled a “good kid” by them doing what is considered to be good, not necessarily by them focusing on just being a good kid in general.… If that makes sense.

[olsenbri]

This is almost embarrassingly tone deaf. I reject your premise that we assume you are treating employees poorly, but can guarantee that upper managment is getting way more money than they deserve when employees work efficiently. Second, corporations usually get caught? Did you fall off of the turnip truck yesterday? Wow. Ben and Jerry's, Ikea, Motorola, 3M, all make profits while practicing good social responsibility.

[forwardfaz]

More money = faster growth/expansion = more jobs.
Provided the executives have at least half of their fortune on their company's stocks, they will always be incentivized to expand their company.

[Ghastly_Grinner]

The responsibility companies have is to its investors

[feydrh]

Yes they should but that is assuming this video wasn't 1 big strawman

[georgewgayiii]

this is the most brazen propaganda channel I've ever seen in my life.