[Juliate]

> If something returns value for shareholders (and monopolies do) then a CEO must do it. This is how the whole system is supposed to work.

Disagree. Shareholders are not the all and everything of a company. Neither they, neither the company exist in a void.

> Of course, there's no reason that capitalism must to work this way, but

How is that not a contradiction with the above?

[dimal]

> Shareholders are not the all and everything of a company.

I agree with you. But what you or I think doesn't matter.

> This is how the whole system is supposed to work.

My point is that our current form of capitalism is designed to work this way, but there's no requirement that capitalism must work this way. This is just the toxic form of market economy that we ended up with.

[Juliate]

> But what you or I think doesn't matter.

1/ It does (because, it's false to say that "a CEO must do this or that" - or that's not a chief, a CEO, just an algorithm).

2/ it's less a matter of opinion than a matter of observing facts: shareholders are not the all and everything of a company. But my perspective may be that, being French, we have a history of having demonstrated the reality of this in actual actions, that USAmericans haven't yet.