Comment by archagon
3 days ago
I think it's much better for society for companies to overhire than underhire, especially when they can easily afford it.
3 days ago
I think it's much better for society for companies to overhire than underhire, especially when they can easily afford it.
This is an idealistic view and makes hiring seem like charity.
There will always be steep corrections when they overhire driven by economic cycles or otherwise (and we're living through an otherwise).
Thing is, the companies doing these layoffs rarely actually end up losing money from overhiring. They’re still profitable. Just not profitable enough for the people on top.
That’s a bit perverse. In democracies, corporations ultimately exist to serve society, not shareholders.
The plutocracy is forgetting that a working and productive populace - with fair wages and representation - is their end of the deal for disproportionally benefitting from the fruits of labor from others; and directly prevents violence against the status quo. See: The top articles in the last 3 days.
Sure, but all they have to do is not hold up their end of the bargain. Who enforces that? These are just norms from 60 years ago that the rich decided they no longer have to follow.
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I think you are correct in asserting the mercy-disciple of market forces.
I also think that counter points on the inhumanity of firms, misses that economies are an objective way to structure incentives to achieve subjective ends.
If you want more money to travel to other parts of the pyramid, or you want to disincentivize certain behavior, then economic incentives can be set up to achieve those goals.
Expecting firms to do charity is pointless. Expecting firms to optimize under constraints is not.
At societal scale hiring people is self-interest, not charity. Otherwise you'll get to exactly where the US is heading now: large parts of the consumer market are mostly dead because people have no discretionary spending power left, and the only way to make money as a business is to become a monopolist.
That's the problem, they can't afford it
They can afford it. They just want to make even more profit.