Am I a bad person if (as left as they come) I invest in American Private Prison contractors on the assumption that Trump will go through with his deportation scheme at least to some extent?
Anyone voluntarily participating in the US for-profit prison system is, almost assuredly, a problematic person with questionable morals.
It's literally making money off of slavery. If you would not be proud to call yourself a slave-owner, I'd hope you would also not be proud to invest in slavery.
In a culture where almost everyone is wearing clothes made by children working 14 hour days who occasionally burn to death because fire exits would cost too much,, this seems to me, an odd line to draw.
Might just be me but I'm not sure I see much of a difference between slave investor and wearing slave labour.
I think the difference is, you can CHOOSE not to invest in slave labor. If 100% of the clothes are made by slave labor, what are the other options? Be naked? You'll get arrested, and now by US law, YOU'RE the slave labor.
Whereas nothing is forcing you to invest in slavery.
Not 100% of clothes directly benefit slave labour. For the price conscious, there are thrift shops/second hand clothes almost everywhere and ethical clothes available online for a bit more (but generally less than brand name stuff that's expensive and still made by child slaves.)
You can invest money for your childrens future and still be struggling. Many people choose to forego a lot for their children but know investing for their education etc is a sacrifice they'll make.
I don't disagree with you that slave labor is bad regardless of who, what, where, how. I disagree, however, that there's not much difference between purchasing products you need and investing in a business.
Some folks can't afford anything except cheap clothing/household goods from overseas, where they are often made in sweatshops with slave and/or child labor; it's not their fault that they can't afford to purchase ethical products. No one needs to invest in a business, though, so choosing to invest in one that deals in slavery is that investor's fault.
For those of us who can afford ethically-sourced/made items, though, I agree that it's quite similar. I have no excuses other than people are, as a whole, not good to each other. :(
I fully excuse folks who are really struggling. Though given thrift shops are a dime a dozen, I don't entirely think it's a free pass.
Sorry, this one just bugs me. I absolutely hate that our culture has this huge blind spot to the very real exploitation that so many people engage in but we'll simultaneously get furious about sins that are, in comparison, fairly minor.
Investing in something evil is reprehensible but I put it on about the same realm as buying an expensive slave made product. At least for the investment, maybe it's for your kids or something rather than looking cool.
Huge difference between not being able to afford the right thing, and being able to afford the right thing and instead investing in the really bad thing.
Kind of like how I have to gas up but I would never invest in the oil industry.
But there are non slave alternatives all over. For the price conscious, there are thrift shops, facebook marketplace etc. Otherwise, there's tons of ethical clothing available online and if you live in a city, probably in some stores near You.
"listen. I don't WANT Hitler to commit mass genocide. But I am going to fund the company of the gas chambers he plans to use. Because I benefit from it".
Buying stock is not funding the company though unless the company is issuing new stock. The company already took the cash during the IPO. The only thing buying shares does is affect the price. So it will make some evil shit stain who is the founder of the company wealthier.
It's a bit more nuanced. Buying the stock increases the stock price which makes issuing stock a better deal for the company in case they want to expand operations. It also makes stock buybacks less likely.
So if they issue stock OP is indirectly funding the company. If OP prevented a buyback and the money went into investments such as a new prison OP has an different effect. Otherwise there's no effect.
The stock market is nothing more than gambling on the public (rich people) sentiment about how well that company is going to do. It's similar to how there is gambling on who will win the presidency, and does not affect the outcomes.
Buying stock is not investment, the money that the company recieves comes from issuing the stock. Your money does not fund the evil things that the company does, unless you are paying for goods/services from that company. But, I have seen that stock price influences the decisions of leadership inside the company. Your individual action will not influence the stock price.
While I admit that I used to think trading was gambling I now know that while there is an element of gambling, there are a lot of measurable factors that make the "gambles" much more informed, even market psychology to some extent.
Said the Nazi, investing in the German military.
I’m a friend to the Jews! But I might as we’ll profit off of their incarceration and death, I mean, it’s happening anyway. It’s not like I could instead of thinking only for myself in this time possibly use some of this extra capital I happen to have available to invest and actually do some good with it, but nah.
Yes. Doing so makes you a hypocrite. Don't worry through, there's no shortage of hypocrisy in America. It's practically a requirement to be at least unwittingly hypocritical. Just by drinking Coke or tipping a waiter you're contributing to a broken system designed to exploit people for maximum profit.
But here's the rub. You can't, in any practical sense, escape that crap, however, you can choose to not deliberately contribute to stuff outside your immediate wheelhouse. It's one thing to buy a chocolate bar out of a vending machine, but investing in Nestle? That's a choice, and one you could have easily skipped. You could skip the candy too, but it's very, very hard (and impractical) to refuse every corporate product ever. Everything, from the materials in your electronics to your mortgage company, to most food from lettuce to frozen chicken, exploits people. But you don't have to voluntarily make the problem worse.
And on the sliding scale of morality, investing in slavery - in this case the prison industrial complex is just greed and indifference to the cost in human suffering. Seriously research it, slavery in all but name has been part of the plan since the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. We never had a justice system; we have a punishment system that hungers for the labor of the downtrodden, especially of minorities.
So if you want to at least try and be a better person, and investing is something you want to do, look into the companies you're investing in. See what their executives are paid compared to their workers here and abroad. There are companies that you can ethically justify investing in - small companies, co-ops, credit unions, pro-union companies, companies actually trying to solve problems or make the world better, like solar manufacturing, etc.
If you want to invest in human suffering, then you're going to have to make peace with being a bad person and being judged for it. I'd advise at least trying not to. It's a hopeless battle, but fighting honorably is its own justification.
So first, you need to know that the definition of "genocide" is larger than you probably think.
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". The acts in question include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.
Emphasis mine.
Second, hastily-built private prisons constructed for the purpose of keeping a group that has committed no crime in one place long enough to "dispose of" them? They also have a technical term: a concentration camp. If they're also performing work, they're a labor camp.
So what Trump wants to do with Latiné folks is a form of genocide.
Third, there are multiple levels of supporting a genocide, from being a member of the society that created the out-group, all the way up through pulling people from that out-group from their homes. Somewhere in the middle of that list is "voluntarily providing aid to those committing the genocide."
Fourth, each level of support bears a different culpability, and each individual within the levels bears a different culpability based on their knowledge and understanding of what's happening, their intentional decision to participate or not, and the amount of protest they raise at the treatment of the out-group.
So, knowing all of this, where would you put such a decision?
Yes. Regardless of the second part. Don't invest in private prisons, even if it's sums that would seem inconsequential to the industry as a whole.
Edit:If it's invest in, in the sense of, buy the stock of, I'd still say yes. It still contributes to the success of the industry, even if just minuscully so.
In theory if you could use any profits to make counter-investments or buy enough stock to be able to influence them to move in a different direction then your strategy might be viable, but unless you literally just buy 1 share to be able to harass them at stockholder meetings then in all likelihood your money is doing more harm than good.
Best to just straight up invest in organizations that are effective in stopping these things and influencing policy against them.
I think the private prison system is one of the worst institutions in the world. I think the reality of the stock market has no connection to capital reinvested into businesses vs shareholder dividends. Investments at this scale are not like giving a three person startup 2 million dollars. They're not growing their businesses by putting it all into capex.
Are you an asshole for gambling on whether Trump will keep his word, using the systems in front of you? Dare I say it? No. You're not.
I don’t think it’s bad to profit from the US economy even though some of those profits would end up being by very evil means. At least in that way, you don’t really have a choice as the economy is very interconnected.
But in this scenario you do have a choice, there are plenty of ways to invest and make money without going out of your way to be extra evil.
I say who the fuck cares what some Internet randos think. I bet you ten shares that more than a handful of the people taking about ethical conundrum didn't even vote this past election.
The only thing that matters is can you live with it? If you can, go for it and make a buck working within the confines of Americans values because if you don't, someone else will.
I'll tell you that I don't regret buying into the reddit IPO despite its various ethical scandals and going forward here my family and future matters more at this point than anything the average American says since they voted or say on their asses and literally didn't vote for all of this.
If you think you see an opportunity go ahead and invest and don’t feel ashamed. Many of the Hispanic immigrant communities that will adversely be affected by mass deportation had high levels of Trump support.
I say fuck it and make a buck. May those who voted for Trump get exactly what they voted for.
I don't think so - the stock market is extremely detached from fundraising in the modern world and if that company decided to fundraise it'll mostly do so on the back of mutual funds and uni endowments.
I personally find divestment is a pretty ineffective personal action in terms of individuals.
The stock market is so detached from reality that the impact you're having is nearly nil. You're much more directly supporting forced labor and incarceration when you buy a t-shirt, Chinese garlic, register your car, eat pretty much any fast food, enjoy chocolate, or do literally anything connected to Walmart.
My point in the comment above is that Divestment (outside of retail investment) has almost no impact. If you live in America you're already evil as fuck and profiting from the misery of millions. The stocks you own are some of the least evil shit you're doing.
If you live in America you're already evil as fuck and profiting from the misery of millions.
Yeah
Regardless this is something you can very easily not do. I can't not pay my taxes, eat, drink, and consume energy very easily but I can very easily not profit off prison labor in this way.
I think that's a fair statement and if you find that line a reasonable one to draw I support you drawing it. Objectively, though, I think the harm we cause through consuming goods manufactured through forced labor is much more impactful.
The question of morality in investments is not absolute; it depends on how one frames responsibility and agency.
Markets are amoral tools. Financial markets operate independently of moral judgments. When individuals invest in an industry, they are not necessarily endorsing its practices but recognizing an opportunity within existing systems. One can argue that targeting an investment does not equate to creating or exacerbating the problems within that industry.
The existence of private prisons and deportation schemes reflects systemic issues, not individual investors. Policies and demand for incarceration stem from government choices and public sentiment. As such, targeting investors as "bad people" shifts focus away from the policymakers and institutions enabling these systems.
Some may justify these investments pragmatically: by securing financial stability, individuals can later support progressive causes, donate to charities, or fund organizations fighting for systemic change. For example, an investor might use the returns to support immigrant advocacy groups or lobby for prison reform.
There is algo "Separation of Investment and Values". Not every decision must align with one’s ideological framework. People often compartmentalize their personal lives from their professional or financial strategies. A leftist could rationally engage in capitalism as a survival mechanism within an inescapable capitalist framework while still advocating for systemic change.
Many industries—tech, energy, or agriculture—have problematic practices, from exploitative labor to environmental harm. Singling out private prisons overlooks the broader complexity of investing in any sector. Most portfolios inadvertently include industries with ethical concerns, such as fossil fuels or fast fashion.
Defending this investment as not inherently immoral hinges on the premise that financial actions alone do not define someone’s character. Morality lies in how individuals balance their actions, mitigate harm, and contribute positively to society. However, ethical investments often require introspection and alignment with long-term values. While investing in private prison contractors can be defended on pragmatic or systemic grounds, it’s worth questioning whether the financial gain outweighs the potential ethical compromise.
Are you saying is not? When applied to investments, the abstraction becomes even more pronounced. As investors, individuals might focus on profit potential (commodities and returns) without directly engaging with or even acknowledging the human or social costs underlying those profits. The market acts as a buffer, depersonalizing the consequences and further alienating participants from the broader social implications of their actions.
So, yes, you’ve heard this before, and it’s a classic critique of how capitalism distorts and reframes human connections in terms of profit and exchange! Marx argues that under capitalism, commodities take on a life of their own, obscuring the labor and social relations that produced them. The true connections between people—worker to worker, worker to consumer, are hidden behind the veil of market exchange.
No, I agree wholeheartedly. My point was rather the abstraction of it just means it's easier for the investment-minded human to justify their lack of direct connection to the mass jailing of innocents while actually being directly connected to the horrors of it. They feel like they're not connected to it by the abstraction of the market.
I get what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree that the abstraction makes it easier for investors to detach themselves from the reality of what’s happening. But at the same time, isn’t that part of how all markets work? Investors don’t make the rules—they just operate within them. When it comes to private prisons, for example, the wrongful imprisonment of innocents or mass deportations aren’t supposed to be part of the “business model.” That’s a failure of the state, not the investor. In theory, these facilities exist to meet state demand for detention, which should be lawful and just (even if we know that’s not always the case).
And honestly, this kind of abstraction isn’t unique to private prisons. Look at almost any other industry:
Investing in food companies? You’re indirectly supporting things like worker exploitation, environmental damage, or factory farming (which involves a lot of animal suffering).
Transportation? Cars, planes, and ships pollute the planet on a massive scale.
Tech? There’s often exploitative labor behind those shiny gadgets, not to mention privacy violations or harmful social media algorithms.
Fashion? Fast fashion profits off sweatshops and massive environmental waste.
If you zoom in on any one of these industries, the moral complications are everywhere. But most of us don’t expect investors to shoulder the blame for all of this—they’re operating within the system as it exists. To me, the real responsibility lies with governments and regulators to set the rules and hold these industries accountable. Investors aren’t actively making the decisions that harm people; they’re just responding to opportunities in the market.
At the end of the day, if we reject every investment tied to something morally gray, we’d have to swear off almost everything. I think that’s where the abstraction helps—it lets people focus on their role (whether as investors, consumers, or workers) without taking on all the guilt for how the system fails. Is it perfect? No, but it’s how the world works right now.
I think you'd be awfully surprised calling yourself "as left as they come" on here. There are some people who are so far out in left field that they come back around on the right again. Lemmy is full of anarcho-communists and people who believe that ownership of property is akin to murder.
You should read your own suggestion there bub. It merely says there are proponents and critics of the theory and that actual research on the metaphor is sparse. Sorry to get your panties in a twist.
I've seen the "tolerant left" suggest calling ICE on latinos who supported Donald Trump in order to get them or their family members deported as some sort of revenge. If that's not a fine example of horseshoe theory, I don't know what is.
My not owning shares of a company doesnt make them any less bad, at least if in own shares I can vote on who is elected to the board and what direction they take things.
If enough like minded people with money wanted to do to corecivic what elon musk did to Twitter the way to do that is by owning enough stock to do a hostile takeover and force the company to shut down.
Thats how you use capitalists lack of ethics against them.
Are you organizing in any way to see that you can cooperate with like minded people? I’m not trying to be rude, but you should really think about the effect you want to leave on the world (not just you, everyone should).
How do you think companies like core civic actually get funding? The reason their stock is booming on trumps win is because the government is who's gonna be paying for all those bunks and cages to get filled, yet I doubt many people are going to refuse to pay their federal taxes.
Your money gets used for harmful stuff at some point no matter what you do, I'm just accepting reality. Capitalism is unethical at every level, some people draw a line at prison labor while others have no problem eating chocolate from child slaves or using a iPhone made by suicidal workers in a factory that pays them next to nothing.
Unless you live the life of a monk who grows all their own food you are most likely benefiting from some kind of human exploitation, more then likely the history of the device you use to read lemmy is filled with suffering workers being exploited at every step of the way, does that mean you should give up having electronics or a phone?
Entropy is ever expanding, so there’s no way to do no harm, though ideally we each try to do as little as possible. There are some parts of our lives where there’s no perfect answer, like technology or clothing, because for the most part, those are both generally exploitative and necessary to support yourself. In these cases, buying second hand can help, but it’s still a secondary market for products that benefit from slavery and/or it’s a separate, new evil like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Taxes are also necessary, and the only workable remedies for the awful things that are paid for by those taxes are petitioning and electing as representative a government as possible or bringing it all down (which would itself include quite a lot of violence).
This is a totally different thing. This is investing excess money into an evil thing so that you can profit. There’s no requirement here, it’s an entirely voluntary worsening of the world.
Nope. Name a company or even an investment that isn't evil. Would you want to invest in it? If you tried to avoid all of them it would be a very difficult life.
Depends on how much you're investing. Is it an amount that is not a drop in their bucket? Congrats, you're evil.
Is it chump change to any millionaire? Don't sweat it. You're literally incapable of changing the course with your buy in.
Lots of people saying it's bad to do as a blanket statement might be in horror if they find out the labor practices that go into any of the goods they purchase. There's no ethical consumption in capitalism. Doesn't matter if you're investing shares or buying a cheeseburger.
97 replies
Anyone voluntarily participating in the US for-profit prison system is, almost assuredly, a problematic person with questionable morals.
It's literally making money off of slavery. If you would not be proud to call yourself a slave-owner, I'd hope you would also not be proud to invest in slavery.
Royal "you," by the way. Not OP, specifically.
In a culture where almost everyone is wearing clothes made by children working 14 hour days who occasionally burn to death because fire exits would cost too much,, this seems to me, an odd line to draw.
Might just be me but I'm not sure I see much of a difference between slave investor and wearing slave labour.
I think the difference is, you can CHOOSE not to invest in slave labor. If 100% of the clothes are made by slave labor, what are the other options? Be naked? You'll get arrested, and now by US law, YOU'RE the slave labor.
Whereas nothing is forcing you to invest in slavery.
But they aren't all made by slave labor. You only have to spend 3-5x as much. Not a problem if you buy %80 less clothes.
Not 100% of clothes directly benefit slave labour. For the price conscious, there are thrift shops/second hand clothes almost everywhere and ethical clothes available online for a bit more (but generally less than brand name stuff that's expensive and still made by child slaves.)
We all have to do something to survive.
If you have money to invest, you aren't struggling to survive.
You can invest money for your childrens future and still be struggling. Many people choose to forego a lot for their children but know investing for their education etc is a sacrifice they'll make.
I don't disagree with you that slave labor is bad regardless of who, what, where, how. I disagree, however, that there's not much difference between purchasing products you need and investing in a business.
Some folks can't afford anything except cheap clothing/household goods from overseas, where they are often made in sweatshops with slave and/or child labor; it's not their fault that they can't afford to purchase ethical products. No one needs to invest in a business, though, so choosing to invest in one that deals in slavery is that investor's fault.
For those of us who can afford ethically-sourced/made items, though, I agree that it's quite similar. I have no excuses other than people are, as a whole, not good to each other. :(
I fully excuse folks who are really struggling. Though given thrift shops are a dime a dozen, I don't entirely think it's a free pass.
Sorry, this one just bugs me. I absolutely hate that our culture has this huge blind spot to the very real exploitation that so many people engage in but we'll simultaneously get furious about sins that are, in comparison, fairly minor.
Investing in something evil is reprehensible but I put it on about the same realm as buying an expensive slave made product. At least for the investment, maybe it's for your kids or something rather than looking cool.
Really appreciate the reasoned response though!
Huge difference between not being able to afford the right thing, and being able to afford the right thing and instead investing in the really bad thing.
Kind of like how I have to gas up but I would never invest in the oil industry.
But there are non slave alternatives all over. For the price conscious, there are thrift shops, facebook marketplace etc. Otherwise, there's tons of ethical clothing available online and if you live in a city, probably in some stores near You.
I agree and I think there isn't much of an effort being made, but investing in it seems like it's making an effort in the wrong direction.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. There is no ethical investing, either.
*yawn
Yeah, it's pretty boring, that's why they call it "a boring dystopia."
Orlly now?
Yeah, there are a lot of big cheaters right nowz doesn't mean All of it is
tell me, how can anyone decide where their taxes go?
Voting.
It's not direct, and it's not simple, but it's about as good as it gets in any kind of representative democracy.
Dude you CAN decide where your investment dollars go.
In what dreamworld are you living in?
You don't understand how paying mandatory taxes you don't dictate and investing voluntarily is different?
You're just the most adorable little troll! Oh my goodness
You don't know where they live, or what their taxes fund or funded.
Assuming they are American (which is what I'm assuming you're assuming), the other option is prison.
Do you have brain worms?
Oh fuck, I haven't heard a retort like that since the 11th grade. I wonder why
Short answer: Yes
Long Answer: Good lord. Yes, it would be something a bad person would do.
In effect, any gains you make will be blood money. Have fun with that on your conscience.
"listen. I don't WANT Hitler to commit mass genocide. But I am going to fund the company of the gas chambers he plans to use. Because I benefit from it".
It's not a one to one comparison but um. Yeah.
Buying stock is not funding the company though unless the company is issuing new stock. The company already took the cash during the IPO. The only thing buying shares does is affect the price. So it will make some evil shit stain who is the founder of the company wealthier.
It's a bit more nuanced. Buying the stock increases the stock price which makes issuing stock a better deal for the company in case they want to expand operations. It also makes stock buybacks less likely.
So if they issue stock OP is indirectly funding the company. If OP prevented a buyback and the money went into investments such as a new prison OP has an different effect. Otherwise there's no effect.
I was coming to say that also.
The stock market is nothing more than gambling on the public (rich people) sentiment about how well that company is going to do. It's similar to how there is gambling on who will win the presidency, and does not affect the outcomes.
Buying stock is not investment, the money that the company recieves comes from issuing the stock. Your money does not fund the evil things that the company does, unless you are paying for goods/services from that company. But, I have seen that stock price influences the decisions of leadership inside the company. Your individual action will not influence the stock price.
While I admit that I used to think trading was gambling I now know that while there is an element of gambling, there are a lot of measurable factors that make the "gambles" much more informed, even market psychology to some extent.
“I’m not a Nazi”
Said the Nazi, investing in the German military. I’m a friend to the Jews! But I might as we’ll profit off of their incarceration and death, I mean, it’s happening anyway. It’s not like I could instead of thinking only for myself in this time possibly use some of this extra capital I happen to have available to invest and actually do some good with it, but nah.
Yes.
Investing to make money off of other's suffering is never justified.
You may as well scream "FUCK YOU, GOT MINE" a little louder.
Yes
Yes. Doing so makes you a hypocrite. Don't worry through, there's no shortage of hypocrisy in America. It's practically a requirement to be at least unwittingly hypocritical. Just by drinking Coke or tipping a waiter you're contributing to a broken system designed to exploit people for maximum profit.
But here's the rub. You can't, in any practical sense, escape that crap, however, you can choose to not deliberately contribute to stuff outside your immediate wheelhouse. It's one thing to buy a chocolate bar out of a vending machine, but investing in Nestle? That's a choice, and one you could have easily skipped. You could skip the candy too, but it's very, very hard (and impractical) to refuse every corporate product ever. Everything, from the materials in your electronics to your mortgage company, to most food from lettuce to frozen chicken, exploits people. But you don't have to voluntarily make the problem worse.
And on the sliding scale of morality, investing in slavery - in this case the prison industrial complex is just greed and indifference to the cost in human suffering. Seriously research it, slavery in all but name has been part of the plan since the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. We never had a justice system; we have a punishment system that hungers for the labor of the downtrodden, especially of minorities.
So if you want to at least try and be a better person, and investing is something you want to do, look into the companies you're investing in. See what their executives are paid compared to their workers here and abroad. There are companies that you can ethically justify investing in - small companies, co-ops, credit unions, pro-union companies, companies actually trying to solve problems or make the world better, like solar manufacturing, etc.
If you want to invest in human suffering, then you're going to have to make peace with being a bad person and being judged for it. I'd advise at least trying not to. It's a hopeless battle, but fighting honorably is its own justification.
There are not enough hundred dollar bills in the world to wipe off the stench of being branded a doody-head by the fediverse.
Thank you for your well thought out response to what might otherwise be dismissed as a trolling attempt.
I mean you're straight up buying shares in plantations so yes.
“As left as they come”.
Doubt.
"Would I be a bad person if I loaned the neighborhood pusher some money to re-up his fentanyl package?"
But the ROI is just too good!
Of course.
Yes
Yes lmao
Yes.
"I'm just trying to monetize human suffering. Am i a bad person?"
Actually no, you're not "bad." You've gone so far past bad that bad is just a dot on the horizon in your rearview mirror.
So first, you need to know that the definition of "genocide" is larger than you probably think.
Emphasis mine.
Second, hastily-built private prisons constructed for the purpose of keeping a group that has committed no crime in one place long enough to "dispose of" them? They also have a technical term: a concentration camp. If they're also performing work, they're a labor camp.
So what Trump wants to do with Latiné folks is a form of genocide.
Third, there are multiple levels of supporting a genocide, from being a member of the society that created the out-group, all the way up through pulling people from that out-group from their homes. Somewhere in the middle of that list is "voluntarily providing aid to those committing the genocide."
Fourth, each level of support bears a different culpability, and each individual within the levels bears a different culpability based on their knowledge and understanding of what's happening, their intentional decision to participate or not, and the amount of protest they raise at the treatment of the out-group.
So, knowing all of this, where would you put such a decision?
@[email protected] yes
Thought so. Just making sure.
Don't do it, friend.
The better investment generally is to invest in index funds anyways, which makes your hands at least a little bit cleaner.
Yes. Regardless of the second part. Don't invest in private prisons, even if it's sums that would seem inconsequential to the industry as a whole.
Edit:If it's invest in, in the sense of, buy the stock of, I'd still say yes. It still contributes to the success of the industry, even if just minuscully so.
I'm a bit confused as to why you would have to ask this if you truly are "as left as they come" but.... yes of course??
Fuck it, imma say it. Some questions are hella stupid
Needed to be said. I honestly thought I was in Onion territory at first…
Yes. Bad.
Apparently the left stops somewhere about right of centre - what a quaint political system the US has.
Short freedom
Do you remember the part in Schindler's list where his factory's weapons and ammo were all out of spec and couldn't be used?
In theory if you could use any profits to make counter-investments or buy enough stock to be able to influence them to move in a different direction then your strategy might be viable, but unless you literally just buy 1 share to be able to harass them at stockholder meetings then in all likelihood your money is doing more harm than good.
Best to just straight up invest in organizations that are effective in stopping these things and influencing policy against them.
I think the private prison system is one of the worst institutions in the world. I think the reality of the stock market has no connection to capital reinvested into businesses vs shareholder dividends. Investments at this scale are not like giving a three person startup 2 million dollars. They're not growing their businesses by putting it all into capex.
Are you an asshole for gambling on whether Trump will keep his word, using the systems in front of you? Dare I say it? No. You're not.
Unless you got hundreds of thousands in assets to invest, you are only gambling on the suffering and slavery.
I would also ask yourself if this is beneficial at all.
Look at their historical prices. Investors have already bought into this.
I don’t think it’s bad to profit from the US economy even though some of those profits would end up being by very evil means. At least in that way, you don’t really have a choice as the economy is very interconnected.
But in this scenario you do have a choice, there are plenty of ways to invest and make money without going out of your way to be extra evil.
I say who the fuck cares what some Internet randos think. I bet you ten shares that more than a handful of the people taking about ethical conundrum didn't even vote this past election.
The only thing that matters is can you live with it? If you can, go for it and make a buck working within the confines of Americans values because if you don't, someone else will.
I'll tell you that I don't regret buying into the reddit IPO despite its various ethical scandals and going forward here my family and future matters more at this point than anything the average American says since they voted or say on their asses and literally didn't vote for all of this.
Yes
The world won't be any better if you don't. The only difference is what you'd feel about it yourself.
If you think you see an opportunity go ahead and invest and don’t feel ashamed. Many of the Hispanic immigrant communities that will adversely be affected by mass deportation had high levels of Trump support.
I say fuck it and make a buck. May those who voted for Trump get exactly what they voted for.
I don't think so - the stock market is extremely detached from fundraising in the modern world and if that company decided to fundraise it'll mostly do so on the back of mutual funds and uni endowments.
I personally find divestment is a pretty ineffective personal action in terms of individuals.
You are benefitting from incarceration and forced labor
The stock market is so detached from reality that the impact you're having is nearly nil. You're much more directly supporting forced labor and incarceration when you buy a t-shirt, Chinese garlic, register your car, eat pretty much any fast food, enjoy chocolate, or do literally anything connected to Walmart.
My point in the comment above is that Divestment (outside of retail investment) has almost no impact. If you live in America you're already evil as fuck and profiting from the misery of millions. The stocks you own are some of the least evil shit you're doing.
Yeah
Regardless this is something you can very easily not do. I can't not pay my taxes, eat, drink, and consume energy very easily but I can very easily not profit off prison labor in this way.
I think that's a fair statement and if you find that line a reasonable one to draw I support you drawing it. Objectively, though, I think the harm we cause through consuming goods manufactured through forced labor is much more impactful.
So is every other American.
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e
The question of morality in investments is not absolute; it depends on how one frames responsibility and agency.
Markets are amoral tools. Financial markets operate independently of moral judgments. When individuals invest in an industry, they are not necessarily endorsing its practices but recognizing an opportunity within existing systems. One can argue that targeting an investment does not equate to creating or exacerbating the problems within that industry.
The existence of private prisons and deportation schemes reflects systemic issues, not individual investors. Policies and demand for incarceration stem from government choices and public sentiment. As such, targeting investors as "bad people" shifts focus away from the policymakers and institutions enabling these systems.
Some may justify these investments pragmatically: by securing financial stability, individuals can later support progressive causes, donate to charities, or fund organizations fighting for systemic change. For example, an investor might use the returns to support immigrant advocacy groups or lobby for prison reform.
There is algo "Separation of Investment and Values". Not every decision must align with one’s ideological framework. People often compartmentalize their personal lives from their professional or financial strategies. A leftist could rationally engage in capitalism as a survival mechanism within an inescapable capitalist framework while still advocating for systemic change.
Many industries—tech, energy, or agriculture—have problematic practices, from exploitative labor to environmental harm. Singling out private prisons overlooks the broader complexity of investing in any sector. Most portfolios inadvertently include industries with ethical concerns, such as fossil fuels or fast fashion.
Defending this investment as not inherently immoral hinges on the premise that financial actions alone do not define someone’s character. Morality lies in how individuals balance their actions, mitigate harm, and contribute positively to society. However, ethical investments often require introspection and alignment with long-term values. While investing in private prison contractors can be defended on pragmatic or systemic grounds, it’s worth questioning whether the financial gain outweighs the potential ethical compromise.
Hmmm, are you saying workers are alienated from each other via the market? Social relations are mediated by commodities and money??
I swear I've heard this somewhere before...
Are you saying is not? When applied to investments, the abstraction becomes even more pronounced. As investors, individuals might focus on profit potential (commodities and returns) without directly engaging with or even acknowledging the human or social costs underlying those profits. The market acts as a buffer, depersonalizing the consequences and further alienating participants from the broader social implications of their actions.
So, yes, you’ve heard this before, and it’s a classic critique of how capitalism distorts and reframes human connections in terms of profit and exchange! Marx argues that under capitalism, commodities take on a life of their own, obscuring the labor and social relations that produced them. The true connections between people—worker to worker, worker to consumer, are hidden behind the veil of market exchange.
No, I agree wholeheartedly. My point was rather the abstraction of it just means it's easier for the investment-minded human to justify their lack of direct connection to the mass jailing of innocents while actually being directly connected to the horrors of it. They feel like they're not connected to it by the abstraction of the market.
I get what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree that the abstraction makes it easier for investors to detach themselves from the reality of what’s happening. But at the same time, isn’t that part of how all markets work? Investors don’t make the rules—they just operate within them. When it comes to private prisons, for example, the wrongful imprisonment of innocents or mass deportations aren’t supposed to be part of the “business model.” That’s a failure of the state, not the investor. In theory, these facilities exist to meet state demand for detention, which should be lawful and just (even if we know that’s not always the case).
And honestly, this kind of abstraction isn’t unique to private prisons. Look at almost any other industry:
Investing in food companies? You’re indirectly supporting things like worker exploitation, environmental damage, or factory farming (which involves a lot of animal suffering). Transportation? Cars, planes, and ships pollute the planet on a massive scale. Tech? There’s often exploitative labor behind those shiny gadgets, not to mention privacy violations or harmful social media algorithms. Fashion? Fast fashion profits off sweatshops and massive environmental waste.
If you zoom in on any one of these industries, the moral complications are everywhere. But most of us don’t expect investors to shoulder the blame for all of this—they’re operating within the system as it exists. To me, the real responsibility lies with governments and regulators to set the rules and hold these industries accountable. Investors aren’t actively making the decisions that harm people; they’re just responding to opportunities in the market.
At the end of the day, if we reject every investment tied to something morally gray, we’d have to swear off almost everything. I think that’s where the abstraction helps—it lets people focus on their role (whether as investors, consumers, or workers) without taking on all the guilt for how the system fails. Is it perfect? No, but it’s how the world works right now.
I think you'd be awfully surprised calling yourself "as left as they come" on here. There are some people who are so far out in left field that they come back around on the right again. Lemmy is full of anarcho-communists and people who believe that ownership of property is akin to murder.
Hi there! Did you know that horseshoe theory is complete and utter bullshit? A quick perusal of even Wikipedia will quickly inform the uninformed.
You should read your own suggestion there bub. It merely says there are proponents and critics of the theory and that actual research on the metaphor is sparse. Sorry to get your panties in a twist.
I've seen the "tolerant left" suggest calling ICE on latinos who supported Donald Trump in order to get them or their family members deported as some sort of revenge. If that's not a fine example of horseshoe theory, I don't know what is.
Another example would be TERFs
The way I look at it, someone is going to profit off a that suffering, might as well be me.
That makes the world worse though. Do you really want to make the world a worse place?
My not owning shares of a company doesnt make them any less bad, at least if in own shares I can vote on who is elected to the board and what direction they take things.
If enough like minded people with money wanted to do to corecivic what elon musk did to Twitter the way to do that is by owning enough stock to do a hostile takeover and force the company to shut down.
Thats how you use capitalists lack of ethics against them.
Are you organizing in any way to see that you can cooperate with like minded people? I’m not trying to be rude, but you should really think about the effect you want to leave on the world (not just you, everyone should).
I wish I could find like minded people but I'm not a skilled organizer, I'm too much of a pessimist.
Then it really seems like you’re providing funds for slavery and wishing it wasn’t harmful.
How do you think companies like core civic actually get funding? The reason their stock is booming on trumps win is because the government is who's gonna be paying for all those bunks and cages to get filled, yet I doubt many people are going to refuse to pay their federal taxes.
Your money gets used for harmful stuff at some point no matter what you do, I'm just accepting reality. Capitalism is unethical at every level, some people draw a line at prison labor while others have no problem eating chocolate from child slaves or using a iPhone made by suicidal workers in a factory that pays them next to nothing.
Unless you live the life of a monk who grows all their own food you are most likely benefiting from some kind of human exploitation, more then likely the history of the device you use to read lemmy is filled with suffering workers being exploited at every step of the way, does that mean you should give up having electronics or a phone?
Entropy is ever expanding, so there’s no way to do no harm, though ideally we each try to do as little as possible. There are some parts of our lives where there’s no perfect answer, like technology or clothing, because for the most part, those are both generally exploitative and necessary to support yourself. In these cases, buying second hand can help, but it’s still a secondary market for products that benefit from slavery and/or it’s a separate, new evil like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Taxes are also necessary, and the only workable remedies for the awful things that are paid for by those taxes are petitioning and electing as representative a government as possible or bringing it all down (which would itself include quite a lot of violence).
This is a totally different thing. This is investing excess money into an evil thing so that you can profit. There’s no requirement here, it’s an entirely voluntary worsening of the world.
Nope. Name a company or even an investment that isn't evil. Would you want to invest in it? If you tried to avoid all of them it would be a very difficult life.
Depends on how much you're investing. Is it an amount that is not a drop in their bucket? Congrats, you're evil.
Is it chump change to any millionaire? Don't sweat it. You're literally incapable of changing the course with your buy in.
Lots of people saying it's bad to do as a blanket statement might be in horror if they find out the labor practices that go into any of the goods they purchase. There's no ethical consumption in capitalism. Doesn't matter if you're investing shares or buying a cheeseburger.