[mikeash]

(2) is a myth: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-cor...

(1) seems like a total cop-out to me. By that logic, you can blame everything on the government. Some guy murders his family in a fit of rage? Government should have done a better job preventing it.

Also, part of the point of this kind of outrage is to punish these companies for their behavior so that the evil choice is not the most profitable one.

[curiousgeorgio]

If corporations don't have an obligation to maximize profits for shareholders, then you'd better try and take that argument to shareholders rather than believe someone's opinion piece on the matter.

I didn't say corporations are legally required to seek profits, but they do have profit-seeking obligations in most cases. Without investors' expectations of future profits, those companies wouldn't exist in the first place.

And last I checked, murder is illegal, so no, I can't expect the government to do anything beyond that (as long as that law is enforced).

[mikeash]

There is no inherent obligation to maximize profits. Most companies have that as their goal because that's what their shareholders want. But then saying that the manufacturer is obligated to maximize profits is a really bizarre and rather disingenuous way of saying that the people who actually own the manufacturer prioritize profits over lives. They don't have to do that, they just do. There's no "obligation" anywhere in there, just people's preferences. Saying that companies are obligated to maximize profits is just a way of saying that it's OK for people to value money above all else, even the well-being of their fellow humans, as long as there's enough indirection in the process.

[curiousgeorgio]

If not for laws and government-mandated standards, how would you go about making sure companies put the "correct" value on lives vs profits?

I can hope my neighbor is a decent human being and that he'll be a good neighbor when people around him are in need, but I personally won't blame him if he doesn't. Similarly, if he's being a nuisance - without breaking any laws - I still can't really expect him to stop (just because I value my peace more than he does) unless I do something to change the law. I can whine about it all day long and tell him it's "not OK", but if I don't do something to change the law (or move), then the only person I can really blame is myself. Blame is only useful so far as it actually has any "teeth" to improve the situation.

It comes down to this: we all want the world to be a better place. We can hope and expect everyone else to live up to our ideals (and complain when they don't), or just do our best to live that ideal ourselves. Anything serious enough to warrant restrictions or mandates on the behavior of others is probably within the realm of legislation.

[mikeash]

Making a company's customers upset tends to have teeth. There's a reason companies spend money on PR instead of just keeping that money as additional profit, after all.

If your neighbor is being a nuisance, it may be more effective to gather up some of the other neighbors and all go over to the fellow and tell him to knock it off.

I don't have any actual solutions to propose here. Maybe it merits legislation, maybe it merits consumer action, maybe it's just an opportunity for some other business to create a competing product. I just don't like criticism of people trying to work around a life threatening problem without also acknowledging the source of the problem, and I especially don't like justifying bad corporate behavior on the mistaken principle that corporations must prioritize profits above all else.

[curiousgeorgio]

Gathering a group of neighbors and telling him to knock it off doesn't have any teeth either, I'm afraid. He can still say "screw you, I'm not breaking any laws, so you can't do anything to stop me."

I do agree about upset customers having teeth. That's exactly how a free market operates. If they're upset enough, they'll stop buying the product and look for alternatives. Except there aren't any suitable alternatives to EpiPen on the market, and it's a potentially life-saving product, so those teeth don't have anything to bite in this case. I'm sure many, many other companies would love to seize that opportunity. So what's stopping them from competing? Answer: unnecessarily complex government regulation.

Or, if that approach doesn't resonate with your worldview, then go out and put pressure on the government to regulate the prices of things like EpiPen.

Either way, the answer lies in the government, not the corporation. The company hasn't broken any laws. We can wish they'd lower prices, but we might as well wish for pink unicorns. The answer for your neighbor is the same - you can't expect him to be reasonable just because you gave him a stern word.

[mikeash]

Yes, your neighbor can just ignore you, but he usually won't. Social pressure tends to work. That's just as true of companies as it is for bad neighbors. If your argument is merely that it might not work, then we're completely in agreement.

[Johnny555]

Fiduciary obligation is complicated and jacking up prices in the short term result in lower profit than keeping prices lower -- if this company wanted to keep the price of the product low, they could easily justify it by arguing that indiscriminately raising the price would invite government regulation and price control (or invite more competition), which would reduce profits in the long run.

[snowwrestler]

Shareholders already know that companies don't have an obligation to maximize profits. Tim Cook among others has made this point forcefully fairly recently.

Shareholders make investment decisions based on their own opinions of which companies are most likely to generate the highest return over their preferred time span. That is not the same thing as believing in an obligation.