[joe_mamba]

>Japanese and American companies have different purposes. In Japan the corporation primarily provides stable income and employment for society,

Are you Japanese? Because this doesn't match what I know about Japanese companies, like Sony for example, who operate in a very American way.

Your image on Japanese vs American companies feels like the copy and pasted idealistic impression of what American redditors imagine Japanese companies would be like, rather than reality.

[andrewmutz]

The idea that Japanese companies provide more stability and lower returns on capital isn't a hypothesis, it's backed up by data

https://www.nber.org/papers/w1762

https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6183.html

[oefrha]

Failed businesses also tend to provide lower returns on capital, and that’s totally backed up by data. Doesn’t mean the “purpose” of those companies was to provide lower returns on capital.

[thfuran]

The purpose of a system is what it does.

[simianwords]

This is mostly a meaningless statement that can be used in any situation

[gottorf]

It's a very meaningful statement when people claim that thing X's purpose is Y which is good, and therefore thing X is good, even though the actual outcome Z is not Y and in fact may be diametrically opposed to Y. Happens quite often.

I don't know if it really applies to the current thread, but I just wanted to point out that POSIWID is certainly not a vapid, empty concept.