Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity is so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and negotiation is almost wholly absent.
Facebook is obviously involved politically, and has been well before 2016. Hell, how many millions do you think they spend on political lobbying? Why do they fill so many of their high-up executive positions with ex-politicians?
> Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity is so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and negotiation is almost wholly absent.
100% agree.
It's amazing how techy-engineering-types are so unaware of how interdependent systems and institutions in the real world are. Especially given the nature of tech/engineering itself.
To be honest I think it's common for such types to have had essentially no higher education in politics and civics. Saying business is or should be apolitical is such a nonsensical opinion that you'd get laughed out of the room at university.
The dominant political ideology in tech hubs is _so_ dominant that it's usually invisible. Now that big tech is getting challenged political, some people think returning to the status quo would be to free themselves from political involvement.
The work you do 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 40 years is the biggest political thing in your entire life.
I agree in some respects. I see more and more of this in the company I work for (and its peers) to the point where it's getting a bit overwhelming. I often wonder if we actually even care about building a good product anymore, or if the mission has changed to social justice initiatives. Not to say I'm against them, but it's slightly concerning that pockets of social media outrage is having such a pronounced impact.
The Black Lives Matter movement and organization stopped being pockets of social media since Ferguson. This a real movement for civil rights changes. Down playing it as a vocal minority is offensive
I think you're intentionally missing the point here. Sure, all business are affected by politics, but in the context of this article, none of these generally limit services based on political ideologies.
Again though that's an example of being affected by politics, not participating in it.
Sales at the lemonade stand are affected by weather, but that doesn't mean that the owner should immediately start building a climate-changing machine.
> You seem to be confusing small businesses with corporations
No, not at all. The question was:
> Can you give me an example of something businesses do which isn’t political?
And thus I gave 2 examples. A small business can also incorporate if they wish. And yes, the bigger a business gets, the hairy things get politically if they want to stay neutral or simply true to their business model, but they are not mutually exclusive.
That if you took Apple, Google, Facebook and started them today under appropriately matches circumstances... they would all either be purchased for meager amounts or put out of business.
I believe in free markets, but also monopoly wrangling. FAANG will absolutely work against the very landscapes they came up in.
Facebook is obviously involved politically, and has been well before 2016. Hell, how many millions do you think they spend on political lobbying? Why do they fill so many of their high-up executive positions with ex-politicians?