Greed has proven to be a more effectively harmful force against humanity than hatred. We should have greed crimes in addition to hate crimes.
Hatred often makes you want to hurt people, but people hurt peope in the name of greed more often, and not only with less potential for guilt, but is often the cause of delusional accolades and reassurance both from within oneself and from others.
Hypothetical:
A CEO lays off 10,000 employees that helped that company succeed, solely to increase earnings and not because the company is hurting, not only seriously hurting 9,997 people, but causing 3 to commit suicide.
A bumpkin gets in a fight with someone he hates the melanin of because he's a moron and kills them.
Who did more damage to humanity that day? They're both, I want to say evil but evil is subjective, they're both highly antisocial, knowingly harmful behaviors, yet one correctly sends you to prison for a long time if not forever, while the other, far more premeditated and quite literally calculated act, is literally rewarded and partied about. Jim Kramer gives you a shout out on tv, good fucking times amirite!
Edit: and this felt relevant to post after someone tried to lecture me about equating layoffs to murder.
"Coca-Cola killed trade unionists in Latin America. General Motors built vehicles known to catch fire. Tobacco companies suppressed cancer research. And Boeing knew that its planes were dangerous. Corporations don't care if they kill people — as long as it's profitable."
https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporations-profit-values-murder-culture-boeing
When I hoard it's a mental illness.
When billionaire hoards he's just successful.
Bullshit
Hoards newspapers
People harmed: themselves
Society's Verdict: Mentally ill
Hoards capital
People harmed: innumerable exploited employees deprived of receiving most of the value they produce.
Society's Verdict: virtuous job creator, titan of industry, esteemed member of the business community, role model
Capital cannot be hoarded, or it loses value. The entire existence of capital is tied to its use.
Jeff Bezos does not have a vault full of money
everything you've said is incorrect.
Lmao it really isn't. You have been lied to.
If Bezos had a vault full of cash, he would be poor. His wealth is tied to his assets, and his biggest asset is the best logistics company in human history.
Hate Bezos all ya want, but his wealth is not in cash or gold or any other hoardable thing.
The guy's got multiple mega yachts and private planes. Just because it's not all in a literal huge Scrooge McDuck vault you think this isn't hording? Even buying a few mansions is a form of hording wealth.
Don't bother replying btw because I'm not really interested in an extended exchange with someone who is this big of shill or an intentionally ignorant person until they take steps to educate themselves.
Mega yachts and private planes provide many jobs, so how exactly is that hoarding? Rich people spending money is the literal exact opposite of "hoarding wealth."
Oh my... The "trickle down" argument!!! This guy has not figured out he is being pissed on..
Oh wow. Indoctrinated much? That's literally all wrong. In fact the dictionary defines Capital as...
Bezos is found is literally in a lot of those horrible things. Granted there is a lot of perceived value in his company. But even if that went belly up today he would still be a wealthy man.
You really shouldn't have skimmed that line.
Also nothing you described is "horrible."
I didn't skim it. I read it with full reading comprehension of someone not indoctrinated is all. You can have political capital. Assets of any kind can also be capital. Even if you don't give them away or use them up.
And I'm here to tell you. If you don't think all the theft that bazos has perpetuated. Leaving people homeless and starving. Millions of others without housing or food security. All so he can ride penis shaped Rockets. Etc isn't horrible. That's your problem.
You missed the two words prior m8.
I mean that's still actual wealth, but yes billionaires tend to be significantly more cash-poor than is believed.
He's worth a lot of money. He does not have a lot of money. Important difference.
Yeah, that's the problem
So then you don't actually care about how the economy works, and are just mad you don't have as much stuff
I appreciate you admitting it to yourself.
"That's how capitalism works."
"You're right. But that's a dumb way to do things, we should try something else."
"No dude you just don't understand how capitalism works."
I don't want more. I'm doing fine. I want the family where two people are working four jobs and still don't have a month's rent in the bank to have more. I want the money I kick into the community kitty to go to them, rather than funding multiple private space programs for multiple billionaires.
Idk if you're the dude i was responding to but that is the opposite of what that person claimed to care about.
Anyway, all of those things can be done without socialism, and I actually know for a fact that the best method is to not kneecap your economic system and just change your social safety nets. Taxing people and using it for social services is not socialism.
Privatization of space is absolutely a good thing tho and we should subsidize the fuck out of it while still remaining revenue-positive over running the programs ourselves.
NASA has done more amazing shit since that privatization than in like 3 decades before it, and their goals are only increasing. It's really worked out. I was extremely unhappy when the policy was enacted but I'm happy to admit I was wrong and Obama was right.
Who said anything about socialism?
Whats bad abour socialism? The true socialism, not corrupted. Capitalism is not suitable go our reality
1st one is Detrimental to your physical and mental health 2nd one is Detrimental to the environment and maybe their mental health (by having no relatable friends)
That's actually a fantastic way to word what I've been thinking about for years. Greed crimes.
I don't know where you're from, but as an American, I'd rally for that to be an amendment.
I’m gonna start asking for this as much as possible.
Not to blow out your flame, but I doubt you will be able to succeed through a "democratic" system, especially in the US, as politicians need corporate backers to get a seat. Besides, even if you get one independent representative, their voice, so your voice as well, will be snuffed out by several politicians using the hot topic of the day to rally support from masses, while passing bills which benefit their corporate backers.
Unpopular opinion?
Bro if you run on that I'll campaign for you.
Seconded, greed crimes is a stroke of genius, lets get OP into office.
The term "profiteering" means just that.
Yet it's unenforced 🤔
I'm flattered, sincerely.
That said, if someone as likeable as Bernie couldn't get any traction, my abrasive ass wouldn't help matters.
yeah,
popular != successful
especialy "popular amongst lefty computer geeks"
I’d argue greed is a hate crime. A crime against humanity too.
I think this will be a pretty popular opinion here, but in society at large it’s definitely unpopular.
Many people are opposed to the current world order for specifically that reason
Be ready. The people will have to make move like Vietcong.
Some historical perspective as it relates to greed:
During some of the United States’ most prosperous times, the marginal income tax rates were higher (topping out around 90%!) and executive compensation was no more than ~20x the average worker pay.
Now, marginal tax rates and capital gains rates are so low, the wealthy often pay the lowest effective rates (sometimes less than 10%). And executive pay is simply off the charts at 300x, 500x, even 700x median pay.
https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
The problem is greed and its manifestation as tax and corporate policy. Basic tax reform and implementing new corporate regulations can and would fix many issues plaguing this country.
Those in poverty would be lifted out by higher wages and adequate social safety nets. The growth of a thriving middle class creates a premier labor force, allows people to innovate and start new businesses, and creates additional private support networks that reduces stress on government programs.
It even helps the elite by letting them live in a prosperous country where they don’t have to step over people dying in the streets to go to their entertainment spots. Theft and crimes of desperation decrease as stability increases. Labor is more educated and healthy. They don’t have to drive on roads with defunct bridges. On and on.
We are all in this together. It’s time to act like it. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.
Why not. We already have lust crimes too
they're bothsupposedly "deadly sins"; i'm just not sure if it isn't people other than the sinners who get the death part of the deal.
"deadly" in this case, means these sins put you at risk o losing eternal life.
Well, agreed, but you can't reform greed out of capitalism.
Greed has often been described as equally evil to hate. As Robert Frost put it:
I mean since we're making up arbitrary numbers why doesn't that bumpkin have a handy firearm? Should raise their number to more than 3.
As much as it is necessary, greed is something very abstract and extremely difficult to prove in courts.
Not really. If there's a known defect in a product that has the potential to severely impact the quality of a person's life... and the company decides it's cheaper to pay the lawsuits than proceed with a recall... that's greed.
Any time profit takes precedence over the customers health and well-being... that's fucking greed.
Greed has been made the only power/drive of society. That's why. Capitalism is as bad as sith, it's just a different driver.
not sure if related but a lot of ancient cultures have many rules to hold back envy for a more stable society. they can be very exterme leading to say the recent mask protest in iran but current culture might be the other extreme so to speak.
Greed is a form of hate
I disagree, that implies that greedy people care about the people they hurt when that isn't the case, and in fact the opposite is true.
Someone who hates another or others is emotional and passionate about them. They care about how those people are doing, in that they care if they're suffering and want it to be so.
Capitalists don't tend to operate on the basis of hatred at all, it's worse in my opinion, they operate on the absense of caring about how their actions affect others, which is sociopathy. They either are or work hard to conduct themselves as sociopaths, only concerned with themselves, and only sees others as disposable means to facilitate their material desires, with their only fears being personal repurcussians for their antisocial acts, not the actual harm they inflict.
A Nazi that hates Jewish people sees the Jewish people's torment or destruction as their desired goal, their endgame.
A capitalist that kills people through negligence did so to increase profits by cutting safety corners hoping not to get caught, their focus is on getting more money, they likely have no strong emotions whatsoever for the peope they killed, those people's deaths were a "just business" means to the goal of pocketing more money.
Greed's destructiveness comes out of apathy/indifference of the effect ones greedy actions have on others, the opposite of where hatred's destructiveness comes from, hyperfixation on the suffering of others as the goal.
Interesting thought. However greed is part of human nature, since we humans like to get as much resources as possible.
Hatred is too, yet we recognize that flaw/failing/deficit/defect in ourselves and attempt to minimize it's effects by educating children that it is bad and not socially acceptable and with punishment if practiced to a harmful degree.
I argue practiced greed should be treated similarly. Greed is a vice and a personal failing. Modern society seems to have complety abandoned this fact. It's part of our darker nature right next to hatred. It's one of the most prominent devils on our shoulders, not angels. We should be teaching kids that harming someone else, even if allowed, if it gives them the opportunity to get more or "succeed" is deeply wrong, and even wanting a lot more than others no less deserving than you is wrong, not "rational self-interest."
Here is the logic issue with your post:
person lays off 10k employees to help the bottom line
capital responds positively and investment in the company grows
company eventually expands to 20k more hires
goods reach more people
Every decision the CEO (or whatever officer) made has knockoff effects that make it impossible to prove said person laid people off for their own benefit.
Your example and proposed moral challenges do not align with reality
I don't think the "good" of letting 20k people not starve eventually, is outweighed by making 10k starve. This is of course hyperbole, but I hope I get my point across. Besides this strikes me as very similar to effective altruism and long-termism, which are slippery slopes by themselves, but that is besides the point.
Also:
No. CEOs most often receive bonuses for making the company more profit, so the CEO is most likely not doing this to get good to more people, but for their own pocket.
You don't starve when you get laid off lol. You get another job. I got laid off 6 months ago and have an awesome new gig.
I stated as such. Being laid off can, but not always is, a source of insecurity and stress. Over half of Americans, cannot afford to loose their job, as it means loosing the roof over their heads. And again, as I stated, my original statement was hyperbole and I stand by the point I wanted to make:
Making 10 000k potentially loose their home, savings, life, is not outweighed by keeping 20 000k just above poverty.
You know how I know you and no one you love has ever been anywhere close to an "average worker?" It's because you think things like this.
People get laid off all the time and yet it is very rarely something shattering to their lives.
Also your belief that most people are "just above poverty" is absurdly offensive. Maybe consider leaving your ivory tower and interacting with people.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuabecker/2023/08/18/61-of-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck-heres-the-simple-solution-were-overlooking/
True, hatred and greed is embed in human nature. However making laws against greed will likely not solve much but discentivise productivity. Or as libertarians will say "cause atlas to shrug".
"discentivise productivity."
This right here. The jargon they use to rationalize cruelty. "growth or die" capitalism says, yet that same growth/metastasis capitalism demands is ironically choking the human race right now.
Growth is destroying our habitat. What we need is equilibrium.
Is the sustainable packaging company I work for, which is doubling in size every 3 years, "choking the human race?"
This is a silly mindset, man.
The human population is not doubling in size every three years. For profits to increase at this rate, at some point human consumption needs to increase, which is then inherently unsustainable, no matter what you are using to produce packages.
Besides, you are hired explicitly because you produce more value than you are paid, via wages and benefits. Though I admit, an argument can be made that this is not an inherently bad thing.
I am aware of why I am hired. It is not a bad thing whatsoever.
You're thinking growth=consumption of resources and that is false. Growth of the service industry, for instance, is not tied to physical resources at all. My industry actually reduces net consumption when it grows.
Even if consumption does not increase, chasing after infinite growth, on a finite planet, is not sustainable, which is my point.
Im not on the "I hate capitalism train". However yeah I understand workplace relations between employee and employer overall is in the toilet.
As of now, the best solution I can come up with is refusing to work for morons. The more that do this, the harder it will be for morons to find staff and run their operations.
Refusing to work for morons will have you choosing between the "good" corporations that just get by with a little tax evasion, wage theft, and waste.
And the "effective" corporations that will do anything to corner the market. Including suffocating / buying the "good companies".
It's a race to the bottom.
I am sure there are other options out there than just those two.
Even if that is the case, quit working for someone and start your own business.
I'm sure your mom and pop outfit will compete very effectively against megacorps that own the marketplaces, advertising outlets, and regulatory framework, hell I'm sure it's a walk in the park to operate at a loss for decades while their lawyers peel back every transaction you process to find the smallest irregularities.
And that's just assuming they don't send a goonsquad to burn you and your place.
💀
Yes I have heard of the dunning-kreuger effect. If your employer is a moron, go find another employer to work with that is a capitable at being an employer.
💀
Not necessarily are they. Many are acts of need and desperation.
You make a fair point, however when you work for someone, that is your choice. To shop at a business is your choice. If you do not like a business, do not work for it and do not shop there.
Stealing from someone is stealing from a person who took time to produce that item. In the case of s store, the store had to buy the product from a distributor.
So theft is still inmoral. Is theft greed? Yeah it could be and in most cases its greed and selfishness. However the thief in most cases can buy the item but chooses not to.
So, I get where you're coming from, and it might make sense for an Aussie, who's consumer protections are very strict. However, most of what is being discussed exists in a completely different environment.
That being said, when you work for someone, it is your choice. However, for the sake of understanding the situation, let's say that companies in the local area all pay very little. Perhaps enough to pay rent, food, and utilities, but not much else. Now, you might be aware that the products you sell are being sold for much more than you make. This isn't a fair pay, and you know that. According to your other statements, you should go find a job that pays well and treats you with respect, right?
But that's based on a premise that that job and company exists. If the current jobs that aren't paying you fairly are all that exist around you, that idea falls on its head. So what do you do then? Not work? You can't afford to save with your current income, and you will starve without it (I cannot stress this point). Move? This article should be telling (https://myelisting.com/commercial-real-estate-news/1334/most-and-least-expensive-cities-states-to-rent-compared-to-income/). No place in the US is going to change your situation, as you're more than likely going to end in a worse spot, if you move without any savings, even with another job lined up. If your next argument is to move out of the country, once again, how would you do so without any savings? Sure, there are people who manage to do it, but immigration in any country is not a quick process, and employment isn't always guaranteed for unstable citizens like immigrants.
So, left in this situation, we are left to ponder the initial question; are crimes of greed (I haven't even gotten to discussing what exactly this might entail) actually worth codifying into law, and having criminal penalties attached to them? I say yes, for many reasons. Crimes of greed are typically what we perceive as immoral or damaging actions due to either unchecked, rampant white collar crime, or the actions of companies that previously would have been unthinkable, but due to eroding regulations and dulling the fangs of the enforcement of surviving regulations, the risk is mitigated enough to justify the profit of these 'greed crimes'.
One can complain about their situation, or one can do something about it. Stsrt your own business, expand your compass. Yeah you might have to try out five or ten jobs until you find one that does not have a moron as a boss and has good pay. Sitting around and whining about it and demanding "laws should be made" is really just a form of communism. Communism did not work.
I get it, there are lots of employers who are morons and pay very little. And yes, stop working for them at all cost. Do not feed the beast, starve them out of workers. I know of places locally that had poor working conditions and offered little pay that went under because they could not find any staff.
Disincentivizing productivity sounds helpful for the environment
A key facet of productivity is achieving the same or higher output with fewer resources, so it's exactly the opposite.
Okay. Between a company hyper focused on productivity and one that’s in maintenance mode, the former is going to have a worse impact on the environment, imo.
haha, you mean the impact on the marginal return to labour?
i mean most econonics rhetoric is fucking garbage, but the stuff from the ones who studied economics before learning calculus properly . . .
mmmm. . . bliss point . . .
Properly? Most people in the USA probably never learned algebra, let alone properly.
???
Austrian economics is real economics man.
There are no "schools" of economic thought any more
probably better to describe them as 'memes of economic shitposting', but i think it may have been that way for a while now.
probably sine quite a while before the word meme and shitpost..
Bullshit. For a couple hundred thousand years humans kept only what they could carry on their backs. And that only counts homo sapiens sapiens. We only started staying in one place and amassing surplus in the last fifteen thousand years and yet there are people saying "greed is part of human nature."
It's the greedy who somehow managed to sell us that propaganda. Greed is a mental illness.
I don't agree with OP. I don't think more punishments are the way to fix things. But neither is gestures broadly the best we can do.
When homo sapians were nomadic, we were quite a tribal social group. The alpha male always had more resources in the group which you can call greed. This was a thing before civilization. And lets be honest, if we had more, would we really share it? Most people want more but when we get more, we do not divide it with others in our community. Very few give up their time and money for charity.
What makes you think that "alpha males" were the norm in the paleolithic?
I could probably be convinced that some individuals had more social capital than others.
What do you even mean by "had"? It seems extremely unlikely that in the paleolithic they had a concept of ownership even roughly like what modern capitalist systems employ. I'm quite certain they didn't think of land ownership the same way we do today. I'd doubt they thought of ownership of tools or food or clothing the same way we do either.
I'd imagine anyone who carried more stuff on their backs than they needed would have significant disadvantages (encumberance) compared to other folks.
How do you know?
Just from looking at Wikipedia, I found a paragraph that starts "some sources claim that most Middle and Upper Paleolithic societies were possibly fundamentally egalitarian." (And that sentence has 4 citations.) It seems like the jury is still out at best on that topic.
And what if that has a lot more to do with our modern world than with human nature?
Indigenous peoples in what is now the pacific northwest of the U.S. and Canada had rituals called "potlatch" in which the most wealthy would give away lots of their resources to those with less. Don't get me wrong, those folks were not paleolithic hunter gatherers, but they're a counterexample to your implication that humans with more never give things away to humans with less. And it was done regularly. (On occasions of births, deaths, adoptions, weddings, and other such events.)
Another example of this is the Moka ritualized exchange by indigenous peoples in in Papua New Guinea.
Looking at how primates behave today, there is an alpha male in the group who has access to more resources. "Human nature" or in this case the nature of primates does not change over a short period of time. This behavior is embedded in us from million of years ago. Sure some tribes may have work togeather, but most indigenous tribes did not document their history, so for all we know there was more of an hierarchy in indigenous groups than we know of.
Copy pasting my own comment:
FYI this argument (often referred to as the human nature argument) only holds water when you look at European history. Most other societies had an element of communal property. Also in more developed life (including but not limited to humans), especially in situations of crisis, alturism is more expressed than self interest.
In other words: socialism is not against human nature. Capitalism is.
Tribes may work togeather in a crisis, but there is always a hierarchy. Looking at primates, we alway see a alpha male leader role who is fighting for more resource control in the group.
I don't have the will nor energy to argue with you, especially as another person gave a quite good rebutal of your main point. I will point to the countless acts of kindness one does to those in their surroundings and community, especially in times of crisis, like the fires and hurricanes that storm parts of the US.
I consider both greed and facism a form of mental illness.
Taking care if each other means you will be taken care of yourself, empathy is a logical and healthy conclusion.
You're basically arguing that corporations should have some sort of social persona/existance. That means they will have some sort of a degree of responsibility towards people that are involved with the company additional than making profit and the minimum that is required by the law.
Good luck with that point, especially in US ...
As of roughly 24 hours past, I'd say an over 500 more likes to dislikes ratio doesn't, to me at least, count as an unpopular opinion. Especially when it's only around 35 dislikes.
You like it when you think it is unpopular
Is there a lemmy equivalent to /r/im14andthisisdeep?
"Hurr durr people don't like greedy corporate goons ruining things for everyone for generations. Stupid teenager thinking they're being d3ep."
Is that how you mean to come across? Because that's how you come across.
The intent behind OP’s statement is pure, and is shared almost universally.
But the specific proposal misunderstands so much about why laws are made and how they’re enforced, how power is abused, why hate isn’t illegal, how businesses work, how harm is measured, etc, that the most generous interpretation is that we’re communicating with an inexperienced mind. In this case, apparently hundreds of them.
On the other hand, no one is born with that experience, and it’s healthy for people (including myself) to keep that in mind.
If a company prioritizes profits over people, money over actual human lives... that is greed, and that shouldn't be allowed.
He said on the internet lmao
Is that supposed to be a retort?
How do you figure?
I think it’s just called “Lemmy.”
What if CEO doesn't fire people, company goes bankrupt, 20,000 ppl lose their jobs, thousands more lose a lot of money on stock market? There's no way to account for everything, not to mention enforcement of this would be biased, so big companies would probably ending up benefitting from that somehow...
Except the CEO still walks away with millions because they were being paid a ridiculous salary. If they took a pay cut the company would still be standing.
In your hypothetical, things would have been different if the employees received equity compensation with voting shares (in exchange for reduced cash compensation). It's weird how complains about greed only cut one way.
Nah, you'll never get rid of human self interest, whatever you do. That's just how biological life works.
There's a difference between "self interest" and "how much money can I make through unscrupulous means that will harm untold numbers of people I'll never know".
I'll do anything to protect my family short of something that will bring harm to another family for no other reason than personal profit. There has to be a line.
FYI this argument (often referred to as the human nature argument) only holds water when you look at European history. Most other societies had an element of communal property. Also in more developed life (including but not limited to humans), especially in situations of crisis, alturism is more expressed than self interest.
In other words: socialism is not against human nature. Capitalism is.
Yes, you absolutely can. That's how every act that's currently illegal became so. We decided it was not beneficial to allow the behavior and put people in jail if they kept doing it.
WeDidItPatrick.jpg
apples and oranges.
As we all know, supporting unionization and literally making layoffs a crime are the exact same thing.
No they are not.
But I do not think removing the source of livelihood for hundreds of people for no reason other than making yourself richer is no different to preventing employees from negotiating fair wages.
Well that's pretty dumb then, because if the business isn't thriving they are going to have 0 employees.
Strong unions recognize this and contribute to the success of the business over all else. That's why Germany has many of the best, strongest unions in the world - they're legislated as part of the company and see total company wellness (including employee safety, compensation, etc) as unified goals.
I'm sorry but did you miss "for no reason other than making yourself richer"? I'm mostly focusing on cases where a company is not struggling to stay afloat, but are in good shape.
Also, I don't feel like this is a good faith argument, not from your fault, mind you, so I don't think it is productive to continue this shouting match. I hope you understand my point, even if you disagree with it, but I, hopefully, have a decent grasp of where you are coming from.
You are really bad at debate / logic / arguing / whatever else you call what you're doing
An action becomes a crime because a law is created for it. Killing wasnt a crime before being put into law. What OP is saying is that we create more laws around the root cause of greed. There are already labor laws in most countries about wrongful terminations so that is most definitely a thing. So it is not an outlandish proposal.
So yes, you can make anything a crime as long as the people in authority agree to it. e.g. Being gay is a crime in Malaysia.
So in your hypothetical, the best choice is for the CEO to continue paying 10,000 people for doing work that is apparently no longer necessary, basically as charity?
Look at it from the other direction: Those 10000 did nothing wrong. And yet some of them lost their livelihoods, some lost lives. The CEO, assuming he is the guy who started the company, and not someone else who came in, could not create the company without them, yet the CEO is the only one who gets rich.
Again, the company does not need to fire them, they can be routed to other divisions to other workflows, they can take some responsibility from other workers, but they were not, they were fired, simply to enrich someone who already got richer from their work, while giving them a small sliver of the reward.
And if they are valuable contributors they will find new opportunities.
Again, paying people based on past contributions is not healthy for anyone. Take sports teams for illustration. It would be like a sports team continuing to pay athletes long after their prime and into older ages regardless of value. This means these athletes no longer find new ventures (coaching, scouting, business avenues) and the team sputters taking the whole organization down.
I'm going to ignore the insane part of your point where you equated layoffs with murder.
Greed, like hate, is subjective. It is therefore, like hate, a terrible prerequisite for the activation of the criminal justice system. The idea that motivations for crimes should change the definition and/or penalty of those crimes has fostered popular corruption of the justice system since its inception. Industrialization has accelerated the adoption of human fears into that justice system, to the point where we can no longer even count the number of infractions under the law.
Adding more subjective emotional consideration to a punitive system which is already weighed down beyond the ability to enact swift justice is the opposite of helpful.
"Coca-Cola killed trade unionists in Latin America. General Motors built vehicles known to catch fire. Tobacco companies suppressed cancer research. And Boeing knew that its planes were dangerous. Corporations don't care if they kill people — as long as it's profitable."
https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporations-profit-values-murder-culture-boeing
You're funny.
If you are talking about the Pinto, then no, that whole case was just misunderstood
What's your point? That people organize themselves to commit crimes? That risky behavior is more dangerous when it's amplified by concentrated capital? None of this justifies the phenomenal leap you made to say that an employer is responsible for the lives of their employees. None of this is precedent for the further corruption of the justice system into subjectivity and emotional bias.
Can't you see that you're actually making it worse? You go after organizations whose bread and butter is legal entanglement, using legal entanglement as your only weapon. You make the regulatory environment more difficult for startups and SMBs to compete in, and you do nothing but give your (supposed) worst enemies more political tokens with which to negotiate advantageous positions in that environment. Why do you think these corporate elites flush hundreds of millions of dollars sponsoring progressive media outlets? Do you think they're stupid?
When I switched from a small company's insurance plan to Amazon's insurance plan (not warehouse and delivery but on the development side), one of my monthly medications went from $0 per month to over $400 per month, and that's with assistance. It was over $900 a month before I got the assistance plan.
Another one of my prescriptions, I used to get in 3 month increments. On the Amazon plan, I can get it in 3 week increments. I opted to pay for it out of pocket so I can continue to get 3 month increments.
If I can't afford all that, maybe Amazon should be partly liable for not having decent prescription coverage. Of course, the problem isn't Amazon. The problem is that it's legal to offer such shitty prescription plans and that insurance is based on employment. So maybe the government is liable if I can't afford prescriptions.
"The problem is that it's legal to offer such shitty prescription plans and that insurance is based on employment. So maybe the government is liable if I can't afford prescriptions."
That happened because corporations lobbied to keep the standards for insurance that low. Our government is really only as liable as a zombie can be, because that's what it is, fully captured and continuously bribed legally (thanks citizens united) to legislate for shareholder's GREED against your NEEDS.
In practice, this is a plutocracy.
Absolutely agreed, but I'm not going to give our elected representatives a free pass just because they were bought out.
That's competely fair, and I agree, but that's also going after the manager of the accounting department at Meta instead of Zuckerberg. He does the dirty work, but he's just a cog, not the one behind the controls.
Im just talking about efficacy and going after the source. If you manage to shame someone out of office, 8 more will vye to get the golden seat that gets all that sweet sweet bribe money they got into politics for because that's how deeply the American greed disease has rotted us.
Sorry, Im not a little ray of sunshine today apologies if I'm bringing you down.
Oh no, I'm with you. Our government has long since been captured by business interests, to the detriment of almost all of the rest of us.
It was that way before, now it’s just anchored in, ftm.
We're talking about criminal law. Can you clearly, objectively, without arbitrary valuation of goods or services, define a legal principle which identifies the point at which a health plan cut becomes a crime?
Well, if greed crimes were illegal, as OP wants them to be, there’s lots of options.
Yes, if you throw democracy in the trash, ignore the rights of the unpopular, and pass any law that appeals to today's public morality, then you'll have lots of options. I just don't want to hear you guys complain after this idealism gets spun to fuck you over by corporate lawyers more skillful than your populist politicians. But fuck me for pointing out the logical inconsistencies in the useless seething groupthink machine, I guess. Apparently I only have rights if the public likes me.
That’s reacting to a whole lot of things I did not say
Pt 4.
Great extremist response to a more moderated opening of discussion.
You've just talked shit to basically everyone in the room, ignored the discussion going on around you and decided you were right in your own head, structured arguments to take down discussions going on to justify your own conclusions, and now you try to pretend to have a semblance of morals?
I mean yeah. Fuck you. Fuck you for coming into a discussion, arguing in bad faith while tossing around assumptions made in bad faith and building bad faith arguments off that. In a forum setting, you only have someone's ear if you actually make sense instead of having arguments so poorly worded I'd believe it if a geriatric wrote it for you.
Also, great to have a clean, easy way to wipe your hands of any actual discussion after you came in and shat all over the place with your existence. Just go 'yeah, fuck me I guess' when things don't seem to be going your way and walk away from a conversation, sure to go over great with anyone you get into an intellectual debate with.
I know you're probably not going to read this far (luddites, amirite?) but this kinda seems like you're worshipping corporate law in either the hopes you become one, you already are one, or you just don't like the idea that white collar crime is starting to become a serious issue that people are understanding needs severe rules and regulations around, and there needs to be severe penalties for. Which in that case, I'm not quite sure why that idea bothers you so much. As they say, ' if you've got nothing to hide, why are you worried?'. Finally, you may just be arguing from a standpoint that is just factually false, trying to justify it like some kind of religion. In which case, I sincerely hope you either learn to know better from educating yourself, experiencing it yourself, or fall out of the population as fast as possible.
Intellectual debate is pretty important, and intentionally arguing and acting in bad faith is just as serious to making sure young voters understand why things are important, as well as laying out the thought process for them to understand. Instead of just giving false promises if you buy into their cult of corprotology, teaching people and encouraging them to learn about issues they feel strongly enough to argue in bad faith or make an effort talking about is so important.
Pt 3.
Again, we're not writing law here. Nobody has even propositioned any concrete plan, or even an actionable statement to get this riled up about. The 'legal entanglement' you're speaking of is just fretting about the semantics of a law neither you nor anyone else has defined, and how if this hypothetical law is hypothetically written poorly; Which is a strawman you've created, deluded yourself into somehow being convinced is the most logical and reasonable stance to take, and the most accurate interpretation of events is both baffling, and really underlines how you're not here to discuss, just argue in bad faith and say, 'no this is bad because what if, if, if, ad infinitum.'
We discuss a general idea and intentionally leave the actual wording of the hypothetical law unsaid because that is none of our (including you) job to make, and to intentionally assume it's going to be written poorly or demand details like what you've argued above is really, once again, putting a nail in the coffin.
Also, nice hyper-focus to the literals instead of the practical argument being made. Nobody ever defined if we were discussing civil or criminal law, or even what classification it should be. So, would you mind explaining why you thought the example given would be inferred as a criminal offense?
Do you think anyone else but you is this stupid? Seriously, this is some piss poor arguing.
Pt 2.
Subjective emotional consideration? You mean the discretionary judgment that all standing justices (supreme court or otherwise) have had since the founding of America, and that continues to this day? I won't disagree that the justice system is being weighed down, but we'll save tackling that issue another day.
You mean like a criminal organization? But, and stay with me here, but what if a legal organization seeks to abuse legal loopholes or commit crimes when the calculated profits offset the risks?
Uh, yes. Risk taking behavior is incredibly more dangerous when power, wealth, or capital is concentrated in fewer hands. If the rail companies chose, they could effectively strangle national defenses, aid and abet foreign actors to cause very serious damage to our national economy (yes, the national economy is a form of national power, and thus defense. I'm not going to argue semantics about how intentionally harming the economy is different than harming military assets).
Pretty sure I've made it clear in the above that this is neither such a drastic leap in logic or risk for lawmakers, the public, or the country to make. We're literally talking about cracking down on white collar crime, and somehow it's this sin against all natural goodness. Neither does a precedent need to be made; we're not writing a law, none of us are lawyers, and this isn't a court of law, so I'm unsure if this is yet another attempt to shift goalposts to some much higher, loftier standard than the general discourse it was meant to be, or if you're somehow under the delusion that these arguments are anything more than idle conversation amongst the general public, and that you somehow think you're in the senate hearing a bill proposition.
In what way? So far you've only agued using common logical fallacies by shifting goalposts, virtue signaling, and obfuscating the actual point you're trying to make.
Just throw the discussion out the window to focus narrowly, in your extremely pointed view, on the hypothetical monkey's paw of the potential affects a hypothetical law might actually impact, with neither side actually identifying or defining what would be the actual dangers or downsides of such a hypothetical law.
I'm not even sure how to start rebuking your points, as any which way is just a different direction that is still buried 17 leagues deep in your ass. Still, on the thinnest of pretenses that you actually want a discussion about what the post talks about, I'll try to make an attempt.
I mean, I'm not quite sure where you're coming from with this take, unless your basic understandings of cause and effect are so broken to not see the relationship between the only part where I can see this comment referencing:
If I'm correct, you're saying that people killing themselves due to a unexpected layoff is absolutely insane, and you cannot think of any way, shape, or form that being laid off has on that kind of decision? Or are you attempting to say that people who are laid off due to business decisions - which are typically premediated, uncommunicated in advance to avoid the loss of productivity that would be expected if a company were to sabotage it's employees like that - are entirely morally and ethically absent of any relation to the effects this will have on those laid off?
Now, you might argue in bad faith that it's not illegal, and thus is perfectly fine. If someone kills themselves due to something like this, they may have had problems before this, or that this wasn't an impact and probably would have done it anyways, or if it did, it wasn't that big, and if it was that big, then they deserved it somehow.
I feel this approach is morally, ethically, and as a human being, a completely void subject. At that point, you're attempting to rid yourself of the responsibility of the effects actions have on others, and sidestep the entire point of the post which addresses the moral quandary of the incredible perveance of white collar crime, and discussing possible ways to tackle this social issue.
I'm pretty sure this deflection is what you're attempting to do with the above statement, while also exploring your own uniquely twisted idea that motivations for crimes are bad, and pretending like most crimes and cases aren't built around proving intent and because of intent.
In your world nobody would go to jail for attempted murder because if there wasn't a motivation to murder someone, it can't really be called an attempt. Tax fraud wouldn't be considered tax fraud because they can't connect that there was an active effort to evade taxes, they just made mistakes that their accountants didn't catch. It's actively advocating for the erosion of the common sense and most basic part of our justice system (if you can't prove the intent or motive, then you can't actually convict someone of a crime, it'd just be witch hunts at that point).
Also, not sure what Industrialization has to do with human fears, or what corruption you're referring to. Could you give concrete examples of changes in law that occurred during the Industrial revolution (1760 – 1840 in case you forgot) of this corruption you're talking about? Also, pretty sure you're talking about the Industrial Revolution as there is no period of time for 'Industrialization" other than the Industrial Revolution, unless you're referring to a more vague, made up timeframe. In which case, keep it to yourself.
When on average it lowers the employees a tax bracket or lowers their net income to below poverty wages