As I read through your comments, one question popped into my head: what’s your thoughts about the Friedman doctrine? Do you address it in your book?
Specifically, the Friedman doctrine makes the argument that the social responsibility of the firm is to increase its profits. That policy making should be left to governments.
Milton Friedman states in his essay:
Insofar as [a business executive's] actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
His theory was introduced in 1970 and it seems has since become the standard for the corporate world
How does this square with what you present in your book? Do you disagree with his theory?
For example, we bought a company, and over the next year or so doubled wages in that company. Our "social responsibility" in that case was to spend shareholder money so that workers had a living wage. That doesn't seem to be the story I hear about say Amazon.
Yes, we've also spent money outside of those 3 groups. We contribute to charity. We spend money encouraging staff (and customers) to get cancer screenings etc. We spend (I guess shareholder money) on lots of things that are adjacent to our actual business.
Frankly, in the long run, I think it ultimately helps the business. It makes us "human" and reminds us that we control money, the money does not control us. This permeates through employee relationships, it permeates customer relationships. Ultimately that makes for a stronger company, built to last.
We've had acquisition offers. The shareholders have resisted them so far (despite easy riches) because we've seen what happens to other companies our size when they get acquired. Shareholder interest flows up. Staff (and by extension society) interest goes down. Ultimately most everyone leaves.