Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, February 05, 2008 6:58:09 PM
Letter writers to the
Los Angeles Times bemoan capitalism and big, bad corporations.
Kathy Barreto of Culver City writes:
Upper-class philanthropy notwithstanding, capitalism is all about the bottom line and always will be.
Corporations have no conscience, and they will never engage in social justice or environmental responsibility unless they can make a buck doing it -- or unless they are forced to.
John M. Lambase of San Pedro writes:
Corporations are established for one basic purpose: to make money by converting nature and labor into profit and more capital.
The corporation was invented to limit liability and maximize profit.
Corporate managers are required to maximize profit, although they often arrange to give themselves enormous salaries. They, the president and Congress will not place the interests of workers, the community or the environment ahead of corporate profit interests.
There is some truth to these comments. But corporations are comprised of PEOPLE. If enough of these people, or at least enough of the people with the controlling power, want to engage in “social justice” and “environmental responsibility”, they will. They will either use their personal wealth or the corporate resources to do so. We see examples of this all of the time. Ever hear of Bill Gates? Eli Broad? Warren Buffett? Ted Turner? Oprah Winfrey? Magic Johnson? And there are many, many, many more, some of whom do not seek out personal publicity. And guess what?
They had to first make money in order to give it away.I dare say that most corporate executives engage in charity of some sort, even if it isn’t always the kind of “social justice” or “environmental responsibility” on which Leftists fixate. After all, for Leftists, social justice often means supporting socialist statism and compensating people equally for unequal productivity; environmental responsibility often means leaving a desert, swamp, jungle, or vacant lot to be of little use to human beings.
Corporations have raised our standard of living by pooling resources, adapting technology, and making more goods and services more widely available.
Corporations have grown large by providing goods and services that people want, providing a return on investment for investors, and compensating employees enough that employees choose to work in them. How did the U.S.A. get to be so wealthy? By conquest and plunder? Hardly, despite what your professors might say. It was by attracting human resources and investment capital and customers around the world through capitalism that was more open and free than other places.
Capitalism is unavoidable – it existed behind closed doors in every “communist” country. But the more free our system of free enterprise, the more people have the opportunity for upward mobility and to be rewarded for their ideas, talents, skills, and hard work. And those people can choose to help others in charitable ways.
Yes, corporations exist primarily to limit liability and maximize profit. And the plumbing in my home exists to deliver and remove water. I don’t fault the plumbing for not bringing me the morning paper.