[simias]

If we follow your logic to its logical conclusion the only way to change the way a company is behaving is through laws and regulations. I'm getting strawman-adjacent here but something tells me that if you think that a company should only "do what's best for itself and it's shareholders" you might also not like heavy handed regulations either, am I correct? And if so, how do you think the problem of unethical companies should be solved?

[sokoloff]

By instituting only those regulations that loosely serve a public good (say a carbon tax or sin tax) and then predominantly by customers voting with their wallets.

[root_axis]

This is as good as saying nothing at all since nobody agrees on what serves the public good.

[sokoloff]

That's why we have a representative process to decide on a single course of action when not literally everyone agrees.

[root_axis]

Yes, you have succinctly described the status quo. My point is that "only pass regulations that serve the public good" is vague to the point of being meaningless. That's akin to saying "cancel all the wasteful government programs" as an answer to the deficit.

[sokoloff]

Ah, I now see the disconnect. 5 posts or so up, someone suggested strong, targeted, heavy-handed regulation as a cure/control for an unethical company.

My "loosely serves the public good" was meant to suggest that instead you could target carbon or sin taxes, but you couldn't (read: ought not) target a specific company, say Exxon-Mobil or Philip Morris.

IOW, broadly target the thing you want to reduce with policy, not the company that does the specific thing.

I can see based on my text how you reduced it to a vague "pass smart laws", but I was trying to make a specific recommendation on how to do that, but then further leaving the majority of control for ethics to the choice of the consumers in aggregate.

[root_axis]

Thanks for the clarification. I get what you mean now.