We have reached this stage in capitalism where capital is owned by unnamed persons through various hedge funds, usually somewhere across the planet and totally disconnected from the market where they reap the profits from. Everything today runs on greed, nothing else matters. We are completely disconnected from the customer and the end product, whatever brings the profit and feeds the greed is considered a legitimate business move.
First, the idea to have a business and people running it detached and completely not responsible in the eyes of the law is the worst idea ever. Anyone can run a company to the ground and claim bankruptcy without too much fuss. Once we achieved this, making a business some sort of a metaphysical being that is allowed to be free of any moral or ethical obligations… this was the beginning of the end.
So first layer of excuses is laid. Business owners have no obligation to anyone but to make more profit, people and customers actually accept this. Oh… he's business owner he must have profit. No matter what, you can get away with murder and blame it on the business. I was just trying to make a profit hey.
This wasn't enough because at the end of the day… you still know the owners and can blame someone or direct your pressure towards. What was needed is another layer of disconnect… shareholders. Shareholders are magical beings who live in magical land of profit only. They don't care, don't know or don't want to know what is required by the business to get them the profit. They only want profit.
So now we have a business, which by itself has absolutely no other reason to exist but to be greedy and make more profit… and on top of that we have it's master. The shareholders. Who demand the beast to eat more and more. They need the profit.
What we have as a result is something like this example below.
An aged care center somewhere in the world gets bought by a big ass corporate monster owned by various hedge funds from US and across the planet. Their first move is of course to cut costs and staff to the bare minimum, living conditions became atrocious and food was actually better in prison. It goes on for a while until residents begin complaining about the conditions and government discovers the magnitude of the horrors inside. And guess what… nobody is to blame! Why? Because of how the “free market” system is setup now. Workers are working for peanuts and can't do anything about living paycheck to paycheck… their managers are pushed by directors who are pushed by CEO who is totally owned by shareholders… who are actually represented by some hedge fund managed by a guy in a suit living across the planet looking at numbers and financials 24/7. His goal is to bring more to the shareholders… who might as well be and older couple just like those living in the aged care. Totally oblivious their investment is killing someone on the other side of the planet… because… profit and greed! Government can't intervene, hey they are doing everything in their contract, they are just an efficient private business!
So in the end, who is to blame for this? It's a perfect setup for ruthless greedy monsters that are running the world now.
And the biggest joke on all of us… those workers in the aged care center, their pension fund… is actually investing in the hedge fund that manages their business. We are all in now, it's the most perfect con ever created! They made us all be part of it.