re: #262 engineer dog

consider, also, that the first responsibility - under law! - of those managing a corporation is to maximize profits for stockholders

however much we desire to operate under our existing economic system, and i am definitely not suggesting any other, it must be realized that this overriding imperative of corporations is not the same as an incentive to make businesses operate in a way that leads to the greater good of us all

This is where regulations and personal injury lawyers come in.

If we pass laws that make polluting very expensive, or there’s lawsuits that make exploding gastanks really expensive, or make payments to miners when mines fall on their heads really expensive — then operating in a way that benefits the greater good (or at least doesn’t harm us) will be the way to maximize profits.

The biggest difference between liberal economists and conservative economists is that the liberals want to reduce the externalities, by applying all the actual indirect production costs to the same pocket that pays the direct production costs. (ex: shouldn’t the oil companies pay enough corporate income tax to cover a big chunk of our military budget? I know for a fact it wasn’t the Cayman Islands Navy that kept their middle east fields from being nationalized….)