Irving Jordahl: No. Any industry does the least it can get away with until they're forced to do something different. The right always insists that the only 'force' that should be allowed is the market. The trouble with that is that when you race to the bottom, that is exactly where you go and then you dwell there forever. If the market were the only force shaping goods, services, education, workplaces, the environment we would be living in third world polluted cesspool of rampant filth, disease, danger, illiteracy and poverty with no middle class and near zero class mobility. The factory collapse in Bangladesh would not be so much a tragedy as an acceptable cost of doing business in the lest costly way....Show more
Eli Trapeni: Sure. :)
Arlen Hamper: holy wall of text
Anton Waln: In abscence of government regulations, Republican corporations run pipes directly from the company toilets into the vats where the product is mixed. This is done to vast! ly increase profits without affecting overhead costs.
Octavio Roylance: Sure it is, but the part where they make more money trumps your dead mother.We knew all this before, just as we know they don't spend a penny they don't have to on worker safety, worker education, all so they can spend a couple of million more on their executives country club dues. They will and have polluted, leaving the pollution for us to deal with in rising cancers and asthma, they go bankrupt to avoid responsibility and open under a new name somewhere else....Show more
Gennie Shauer: No..
Boris Hadsall: Corporations exist for one single purpose, to maximize their own profits, to give their investors the highest possible return on investment (ROI). Profit is more important to corporations than safety, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, or any other consideration. In fact, if you impose laws or regulations requiring corporations to be fair to their customers or their e! mployees or their suppliers, they will naturally find ways to ! work around these regulations so as to have less effect on their profits.This isn't to say corporations are evil or immoral. They are -amoral-. They are blind to morals and ethics, they are led only by the profit motive. After all, profit is why they exist in the first place.This is just one of several reasons why capitalism can't work without a certain amount of govt. regulation....Show more
Pamela Meno: Regulation is not profitable to foreign investors the so called job creators who see an end to democracy
Ruby Martis: That's a lot of explanatory material added to your question, but it's good stuff. You make a fine case for your argument.NO, most corporations wont' voluntarily self-regulate.in the absence of government regulations (or something equivalent), most corporations will exploit "economic externalities" whenever they can.That is, a company seeking to compete in a price-conscious market will normally try to produce things as cheaply as possible. ! This usually means that if it can force "external" actors in the economy -- people outside of its own control -- to pay some of the legitimate costs of producing cars (or any other consumer good), the corporation will do so.The company, to reduce its own production costs & its own prices, will thus try to avoid paying for quality control, safety measures important to its own employees and its customers, or controls over its own factory air and water pollution. By cutting out spending on such good things, the company reduces its overall costs, improves its bottom line, and normally pleases a majority of its stockholders. Government regulation when successful forces firms in a competitive market to "internalize" the costs of production -- i.e. not to dump those costs on consumers, workers, & the environment.Therefore most corporations need government regulation to compete ethically. Competing "unethically" is cheaper.Caveat: However, even in an unregulated market, a FEW ! competitive companies may try to attract consumers in "niche" markets b! y providing greater product quality, a "greener" or less polluting production style, and even -- possibly -- greater workplace safety for their employees.That's why consumer boycott campaigns SOMETIMES have good effects under capitalism. They inspire a few companies to strive for a more "ethical" or "greener" image, usually to attract morally earnest consumers from the upper-income brackets. IOW, boycotts sometimes encourage companies to satisfy the desires of the sorts of people that RW Conservatives often denounce as "liberal elitists."Thus some farmers prosper by producing organically grown vegetables, usually at a higher price, for middle-class or upper-class consumers who care about more than price. Starbucks claims at least to buy "Rainforest-friendly" coffee, to attract some of these same people. Some other companies peddle "Fair Trade" coffee, again at a slightly higher price. Whole Foods, too, claims to practice a higher form of capitalism by selling organic a! nd pesticide-free foods to a fairly large consumer base, again at higher prices.But in the absence of government regulation, not to mention strong labor union activism, Wal-Mart represents the more common form of capitalist competition. Wal Mart and companies like it promise "low, low prices" -- and deliver them -- by "externalizing" their costs and buying stuff made under extreme low-wage conditions in places like China. You need unions & regulations if you want to keep most companies from taking this path. -- democratic socialist/ studied capitalist "neoclassical" economics in graduate school...Show more
Somer Distilo: Absolutely not.
Brian Marquina: No, not voluntarily, but out of necessity.You see, you have to be willing to dismantle ALL corporate protections - including those written into the judicial process, and government protections concerning legal liability.If businesses cannot be insured against this type of risk, then risking being sued into bankr! uptcy would be nonsensical.I really recommend that before you get too e! xcited about regulation, you take a look at who actually fights to draft and implement those regulations. Most of those regulations are lobbied for and drafted by the very corporations they are meant to restrict, because of course, they are fighting to implement the rules that restrict them the least, while pushing out smaller competitors.You really ought to read Gabriel Kolko's "The Triumph of Conservatism." Kolko was a left-liberal historian who criticized the Progressive Era, and showed how many of the reforms and regulations were really designed to limit corporate liability and put a stranglehold on the market. I could refer you to many good right-libertarian sources on the same issue, but I have a feeling that you'd dismiss them out of hand, since you probably won't even bother to check out Kolko's work. I mention it only because other Y!A users may be interested.Again, I'm not opposed to higher safety standards as a temporary measure, but long-term, the corporatio! ns will always win the regulation war. You have to be willing to attack on multiple fronts....Show more
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