>Meta is not people, it's a publicly traded company that's practically legally required to make money and grow infinitely.
Has a company ever faced any sort of legal repercussions for sacrificing profit for moral reasons? That isn't rhetorical. I'm not aware of this ever happening, so I'm dubious of your claim.
That was basically what Ford vs Dodge was about. Ford lost and had to change direction. If C-suite does not operate in that direction, they can sue and will win. There is no point in going in different direction, courts already quite clearly said you will lose.
> My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.
> A business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders. The powers of the directors are to be employed for that end. The discretion of directors is to be exercised in the choice of men to attain that end and does not extend to a change in the end itself, to the reduction of profits or to the nondistribution of profits among stockholders in order to devote them to other purposes.
>If C-suite does not operate in that direction, they can sue and will win. There is no point in going in different direction, courts already quite clearly said you will lose.
If this is true, it should be easy to point to some examples from the last hundred years. Because that Wikipedia article you linked makes it very clear that the conclusion you're drawing is highly debated. The disagreement is important enough to be mentioned in the second sentence in that article. The first source on the page is the actual case and the next two are both criticisms of the interpretation that you seem to very confident in.
It faces criticism, but still held true. "sacrificing profit for moral reasons" is not acting in best interest of shareholders. That doesn't mean maximizing value at all times btw, e.g. assessing potential reputational damage and sacrificing some profit by not doing something can be acting in best interest of shareholders (or not, depending on circumstances).
this is a very poorly framed argument, a company is comprised of people who make executive decisions such as the very topic we're making right now. they have the discretion to choose strategies at generating shareholder value that aren't so short sighted as to be on the wrong ethical side of this.
