The bottom line is that, as long as no laws are broken (including environmental, labor, and antitrust laws), a corporation can and should make as much money as possible for the shareholders. That’s its purpose.
I seek out these corporations, and invest in them.
I’m curious how many corporations have “mission statements” that say something other than “Our mission is to make as much money as possible for our shareholders.”
And I am doing all I can to make sure that they all go bankrupt.
By extension of your logic, since those environmental, labor and antitrust laws are inhibiting the profits of the corporation, it can and should do everything possible to weaken those laws, regardless of their effect on others, because, after all, that’s its purpose.
This describes the behavior pattern of a sociopath.
That would be all of them. The “make as much money as possible” part is implied; every for-profit business is trying to maximize profits in the best way they can. The only thing that matters is what “best” is to the business.
Does “best” mean making sure they follow all rules and regulations?
Does “best” mean cutting corners where and when they can as long as they can get away with it?
Does “best” mean taking care of your employees and fostering a culture that attracts and retains the best and brightest?
Does “best” mean crushing the competition every way you can?
Does “best” mean doing something meaningful that actually improves the world in some way while making Scrooge McDuck money?
“Maximizing profits” doesn’t need to be said out loud.
This makes zero sense. If a corporation succeeded in “weakening the laws,” they would be weakened for their competition, too. It would be as illogical as an NFL team trying to remove certain rules in football in an effort for them to “win more games.”
Don’t be daft. Would you also say “it’s illogical for business to be against any new laws that might inhibit profit if those laws would inhibit the profit of all competition equally”?
I think you’re missing a huuuuge qualifier: “every for-profit publicly traded business…”
I don’t see how that’s relevant. A business is trying to make money.
Yes, if you have shareholders that you’re beholden to, that’s going to up the ante. But that’s as much a matter of scale as anything. Your mom and pop corner store isn’t going to be publicly traded. They still need to make profits though, at least to stay afloat, and if they found a way to improve profits immensely (let’s say by adding a new feature to their store that was extremely popular) they will. Because that’s what a for-profit business does.
If mom-and-pop have an opportunity to raise profits, but it means more work, or more hours, or providing less income to their employees, or a change in routine that is disagreeable, or a disruption to a comfortable status quo, they may choose not to take that opportunity.
There are thousands of businesses for whom “maximizing profits” is only one of a set of competing priorities. One way to run a business is to center maximizing profits, but it’s not the only way.
It sounds like you’re agreeing with exactly what I said.
The entire sector will benefit from weakened laws - and others (other companies as well as people) can suffer.
And we know this because every darn oil company lobbies to remove what constraints already exist on their behavior. If it made zero sense, why are they doing it?
Maybe? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m just not picking up what you’re putting down. It seemed that you were suggesting that all for-profit businesses, no exceptions, maximize profits- even if they say they have other goals, those goals are always secondary to opportunities to increase profit. If you meant something else, I apologize.
“Making profits” are not at all the same as “staying afloat”. Profit is what you get after you pay all your expenses, including salaries. Sometimes that gets obfuscated when it’s a really small business where the owner(s) salary is variable and is just the difference between gross revenue and expenses, but still, increasing profits are not required to stay afloat.
No, I was saying that making profits is always a goal. Whether it is the primary goal or secondary goal will vary.
Yes, I was a business major, I know what a profit is. And a margin, I also used to be a store manager once upon a time. A for-profit business is, by definition, trying to make a profit. They aren’t always successful, sometimes they break even, sometimes they even will take a loss, but they are trying to make a profit. If they aren’t, they are literally by definition a nonprofit organization.
Increasing profits are required to, well, increase profits. Which is literally what a for-profit business is trying to do. That’s why it has that label.
The small business staying afloat would love to increase their profits if they aren’t a nonprofit. It’s possible they can’t, or are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to do so. For example, let’s say a business could become profitable by lowering worker salaries to a minimum wage, but they want to treat their employees better than that so choose not to. That doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in it though if they could do so without making those sacrifices.
I once worked for the Navy’s Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) as an employee at a base movie theater. That was a nonprofit organization because it existed to cater to servicemembers and their families. The services and products it offered weren’t free, but it made just enough money to stay afloat in addition to whatever government subsidies it received to keep in operation. That was an organization that had absolutely no goal to increase revenue beyond what it needed to function. That’s the only kind of business that doesn’t have profit as a goal.
Maybe it’s semantics, or maybe just a philosophical difference… I don’t need to go back and forth too many more times. But I think you are incorrect to assume that all for-profit businesses are trying to increase profits.
As to your example about reducing wages. I mean, there are a lot of things I’d like to do if not for some of the negative consequences. To declare that a business would increase profits if all else was equal (“interested in it if they could do so without making sacrifices to other priorities”) is somehow proof that all for-profit businesses are about maximizing profit is a pretty specific philosophical take that says more about you than it does about business.
I have worked for and with companies where as long as profits maintained at a comfortable margin above expenses, there was no talk in the “c suite” about increasing profits. Decisions were made based on another set of priorities, with the belief (based on our success) that centering those priorities would result in a sustainable company.
When you say a non-profit is the only kind of business that doesn’t have profit as a goal, you are wrong. Speaking from experience.
I’m also not sure that the claim that they lost money is accurate.
Looking at this:
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XOM/exxon/gross-profit
I don’t see any years or even quarters that they were not profitable. Some years more than others, but none were negative.
Yes, and if a mom and pop store is able to give campaign contributions to their politicians to increase their profits through tax breaks, subsidies, and creating barriers to entry, they would.
But most mom and pop stores don’t have those resources, unlike let’s say a oil company that makes hundreds of billions a year.
And there are a lot of opportunities that are simply unavailable for a small business that are available for a multinational oil company.
And if they are in an actual free market, then their profits are limited by the fact that if they are more than a few percent, others will enter the market and drive down the price.
Or doing so means that their employees would go to their competitors. If there are competitors. They’d also love to raise their prices, but then their customers will go to their competition, if there is competition.
With your small mom and pop store, if their costs go up, if they are paying more to stock the shelves or pay rent or payroll, they will usually end up eating those costs themselves. Directly passing them onto customers or taking them out of employee pay is often not an option, not in the short term, anyway. That’s how the free market works.
But, if they are the only store in town, then when their costs go up, they can pass that directly on, and actually profit more off the higher prices.
It’s definitely complicated and situations will vary from business to business.
For example, a gas station generally will have no choice but to raise gas prices in response to demand. Though since the industry moves up and down together like a tide, in all likelihood their competitors have to do the same.
The ones with more flexibility are instead the ones up top… The oil companies. That’s why I don’t gripe at my local station when I have to pay more at the pump. That wasn’t their choice.
I am truly astounded by the naivete of this statement. Is the right wing bubble in which you live so opaque that you don’t see the extreme lengths that businesses go to enact legislation that favors their business? You think that the major corporations give millions of dollars to superpacks to buy legislators just because they are feeling patriotic? And you chide us for our lack of understanding of how business works?! Astonishing!
Agreed, and most of the time, your local station is owned by a small business or individual who is getting only a slim margin, if any, on gas sales. They are the ones that are actually taking the risk, and absorbing losses when gas prices fluctuate.