foolishowl

@accideath No, an organization does not have a conscience. It is not the sum total of the consciences of its owners. It is not a collective person. It is an engine.

One of the reasons to be clear about this is that you can quite easily find people who believe that Microsoft, for instance, is doing good in the world. I used to work for Microsoft and met career Microsoft people who obviously sincerely believed in it.

You have to first understand how the engine actually works.

@accideath We started by talking about Microsoft, and I was explaining that there's no such thing as "enough" profit for a capitalist enterprise.

There are many organizations that are not capitalist enterprises. There are small businesses and cooperatives where the owners deliberately keep profits low. The small business doesn't have a conscience; the owners may. And it leaves them vulnerable. Small businesses destroyed or absorbed by larger ones is the third oldest story in capitalism.

@accideath I'm calling them capitalist enterprises to emphasize that they are capitalist enterprises. They accumulate capital. That is what they are and defines what they do.

A capitalist enterprise does not decide it has enough and can retire and take up gardening. It is not a person. It does not have a conscience.

@accideath All of them. That is the definition of a capitalist enterprise.

@accideath The point isn't whether Microsoft will reach that end. The point is that like all capitalist enterprises it will forever strive to do so.

@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 Because for capitalism, profit is not the end, only a means to the end. The end is to accumulate sufficient capital to absorb all competitors and achieve total control of markets.