technically companies today don’t have to always prioritize profit. they just have to follow the orders of the shareholders, and most for-profit investors are gonna demand that profit be maximized.
if you have a company but it’s 51% city-owned then it doesn’t have to maximize profit. the city can set its own goals, such as selling a certain number of items at a certain maximum price or opening up a grocery store in food deserts. public transport is typically a city-owned company, yet prioritizes availability over profit.
Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard.
This is why the Golden Age of American manufacturing throughout the '50s and '60s was able to raise so many families into the middle class: business decisions were made for the good of the business as a whole, because a well-trained and fairly-treated workforce was more productive and less likely to strike. Preserving the maintenance of the business is what improved shareholder value.
Union-busting and Reaganomics gave us Jack Welch and the pump-and-dump bullshit we see now, not a hundred year old court ruling.
That was back before it was ruled illegal to not always prioritize profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
technically companies today don’t have to always prioritize profit. they just have to follow the orders of the shareholders, and most for-profit investors are gonna demand that profit be maximized.
if you have a company but it’s 51% city-owned then it doesn’t have to maximize profit. the city can set its own goals, such as selling a certain number of items at a certain maximum price or opening up a grocery store in food deserts. public transport is typically a city-owned company, yet prioritizes availability over profit.
From the article you linked:
This is why the Golden Age of American manufacturing throughout the '50s and '60s was able to raise so many families into the middle class: business decisions were made for the good of the business as a whole, because a well-trained and fairly-treated workforce was more productive and less likely to strike. Preserving the maintenance of the business is what improved shareholder value.
Union-busting and Reaganomics gave us Jack Welch and the pump-and-dump bullshit we see now, not a hundred year old court ruling.
I would need to ask a corporate lawyer to be sure.
Biggest mistake in history