[xinjiang]

Saying your business can do whatever it damn well pleases because you own it is like saying I can drive my car any way I want. Not so. Your actions affect others. You are using public infrastructure and there are rules.

Move to an island where you can be all by your lonesome and run a business any way you want there.

[Avshalom]

I'm pretty sure that mhartl means that there (is|should be) no universally mandated goal of a business (e.g. maximize stock price, maximize market share, grow quarterly). Not that businesses should be allowed to break laws.

The goals of the business should be the goals of the owner not the goals of some economist or capitalist pundit.

[tomjen3]

First I see that you are new here, so welcome.

That isn't much of an argument you are presenting though -- you could argue against a person being allowed to do anything based on that. The reason I can't drive a car the way I want is that it represents a clear and present danger to the health of third-parties. On the other hand running my business the way I want doesn't present a clear harm to others, so I can't.

[Andrew_Quentin]

The BP oil spill is a clear example of dangers to others, as is the credit crash. There are numerous other examples, one given in the article itself, where the actions of business can do great damage to individuals. Is my toothpaste safe? What about my tomatoes?

[chc]

This seems like a bizarre leap from what mhartl was talking about when he said "A business should do what the owners want it to do", which is what tomjen3 was defending. Given the choice between a reasonable interpretation of someone's comment and an unreasonable one, it seems unkind to choose the unreasonable one without even asking for clarification.

When you hear someone say something like "People should be free to choose their own destiny," do you come in guns-a-blazin' about how they shouldn't be free to choose a destiny where they kill people or beat children? Because that's usually not what people mean when they say that. I think mhartl and tomjen3 were just suggesting that this same principle applies even when the person is a business owner — that people don't suddenly have any one particular goal forced on them just because they happen to be running a business.

[davidw]

In economics this is called an "externality", specifically a negative one in this case.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

[ams6110]

The credit crash was due as much to people taking on obligations they ought not to have taken on, as it was about lenders making loans they ought not to have made.

[GrowMap]

"On the other hand running my business the way I want doesn't present a clear harm to others, so I can't."

I beg to differ. How corporations are run harms so many others that it amazes me that you would even say that. What about all the "down-sized" workers whose pensions were gutted and benefits taken away - or the workers who lose their lives because companies care more about the bottom line than they do about safety?

[icebraining]

tomjen3 said "the way I want", not "any way I want". There's an important distinction. Just because some companies act like that doesn't mean all business owners - and particularly tomjen3 - do.

See chc's post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3393472