Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Pithy aphorism time

If your business model doesn't work without externalizing massive harms, it's a bad business model. If a new regulation or a cultural shift is going to make it stop working, that's a feature, not a bug. (Thinking at the moment of business models built on exploitative labor practices like low minimum wage and unpaid internships. Obviously the fossil fuel industry is another among the many to which this idea could apply. And of course the worst part is that in a lot of cases the business model would actually still work fine, just with slightly lower margins.)

UPDATE: Turns out this is basically a rephrasing of something FDR said:
"It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."

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