[unmole]

Relocating to low tax jurisdictions and boosting employee morale both contribute towards creating long term shareholder value.

> The Russian sanctions actually surprised me in that a lot of corporations actually pulled out and fast.

Companies either pulled out because they were legally obligated (That's what sanctions are) or they wanted to avoid reputational damage to their brands. Again, rational self interest.

Corporations do not and I'd argue should not take political positions in the way people do.

[SantalBlush]

This is completely made up. Corporations take political positions all the time; it's why they hire lobbyists. Taking political positions is part of business.

Your statement really could not be further from the truth.

[unmole]

Again, corporations act in their rational self interest. Sure, industry specific regulation and abortion access are both political. But conflating them is not particularly useful.

[jimkleiber]

I suppose industry specific regulation may be more direct, but if a company has a majority of employees who strongly believe in a specific social issue, such as abortion access, then couldn't it also be in the company's interest to lobby for that specific issue?

[unmole]

How did that work out for Disney?

[jimkleiber]

I'm confused at how that follows what you were saying. I thought you were saying businesses try to act in their rational self-interest and I was trying to highlight how political issues could be in their rational self-interest.

I don't think the effects of one's actions, such as those of Disney's, would negate whether the company intended to do something to help their own company.

[unmole]

My comment was flippant, I apologise.

What I meant was taking sides on divisive hot button issues is fraught with peril. The probability of blowback is high.

Even if a large proportion of employees held a particular political position, I'd imagine only a small number of activist employees would be disgruntled by the company choosing to stay out of it.

[SantalBlush]

I also act in rational self interest, so I guess that makes all of my positions apolitical.

With that being said, abortion should be legal at the federal level. By your logic, this isn't a political statement.

[unmole]

Most people also support political positions that are orthogonal to or even against their self interest. That is what makes them different from corporations.

Literally nobody will benefit from a ban on abortions. That doesn't stop people from taking such a position.

[SantalBlush]

You're using your own personal definition of "political", in which positions taken in rational self interest are not political, but this isn't how it works. It's difficult to have a discussion if you're using your own definitions of words.

It seems what you're really trying to say is that corporations should only act in rational self interest. As has been pointed out, there are circumstances in which a corporation can be acting in rational self interest by supporting abortion, or by taking other politically-charged positions.

The whole rational-vs.-political dichotomy you're trying to put forth is a false one; being political is not synonymous with being irrational or whatever you're suggesting.

[spacemanmatt]

> Literally nobody will benefit from a ban on abortions

The political class benefits from constituencies terrorized by leaders who criminalize health care

[ta988]

They often don't take political positions, they make them.

[esolyt]

> Companies either pulled out because they were legally obligated (That's what sanctions are)

AFAIK, there were no sanctions regarding multinational corporations. McDonalds etc. were not legally obligated to pull out.

[owl57]

Yes, that's for publicity.

Renault has signed a deal where they sell the AvtoVAZ factory to Russian state but can buy back in the next 6 years and are in the meantime giving AvtoVAZ designs of new Renault models and assistance with getting parts for clones from more Russian-friendly countries.

McDonalds definitely feels like they're doing something similar but in a more covert way. Ate there in Moscow yesterday. They have a new logo, Big Mac is missing from menu (trademark negotiations probably?), but other than that I assure you they're re-open.

[hericium]

> pulled out (...) to avoid reputational damage to their brands.

French retailer Auchan did not move out of Russia and I have some friends who stopped shopping there and are quite vocal about how noone should shop there.

[unmole]

Because the company decided that the risk of reputational damage was smaller than the value of their Russian operations? The fact that they decided to stay put doesn't mean they support the invasion.

Don't anthropomorphize corporations.

[ashwoods]

Calling out anthropomorphization of corporations when related to morality or politics while attributing rationality or self-interest is a contradiction.

Corporations have no self-interest or do not think. Corporations are human artifacts composed of human beings that have specific rules applied to them in the great game in our societies, and tend to behave accordingly. This behavior have patterns that we as humans recognize unsurprisingly as human, because they are composed by humans. A corporation is a as rational as a group of humans can be.

Corporations do not always "act" in their self interest, and we can (and in my opinion should) expect moral obligations from them as we do with humans.

[ninjanomnom]

Even if you don't want to anthropomorphize the company, it's still the smart decision to take action as if they were in this case. Social and reputation repercussions were evidently not weighed heavily enough so if we want them to take a different action in the future then we as a society needs to respond to change that weighting in the future. If you just pass it off as a company being a company seeking profit as if it were a force of nature and don't do anything about it, then you remove one of the incentives for a company to align with the morals of greater society.

[amanaplanacanal]

Corporations are owned by and run by people. Actual humans make those decisions.

[dillondoyle]

Don't have to give them human emotions or qualities to make an ethical decision and advocate with the power of ones $

[hericium]

> The fact that they decided to stay put doesn't mean they support the invasion.

How about with taxes paid there?

German chancelor Olaf Scholz halted $10b Nord Stream 2 project and plans to stop fossils import from Russia to cut cash flow to Putin's regime. Other repercussions' goal is similar: to stop indirectly funding Putin's invasion.

Everyone paying Russia could just "stay put" but this wouldn't be inaction.

[psyfi]

> How about with taxes paid there?

How about taxes paid in countries with more civilian kills in unjustified wars?

Are people from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sub-sahran africa less horrible to kill than from Ukraine?

I'm not whatabouting, I'm just clarifying what this idea implies

The actual reason why it's "okay" to pay taxes in U.S. is that the media don't demonize U.S. as equally as for Russia, Iran, Taliban, etc.. Therefore, public opinion isn't really going to affect their $$