Comment by graemep
5 hours ago
Its short termism. its the same throughout the west and beyond. The markets want returns on a one or two year period, not long term investment. Executive pay is almost always tied to short term profits and share prices.
Yeah, it's the perversion of capitalism known as publicly traded companies.
Once you start noticing private companies (like some restaurant chains) manage to both treat their employees better and serve their customers better than the publicly traded ones, it seems like a very consistent trend.
Having pursuit of endless growth to appease otherwise uninvolved shareholders might not be the best way to do "capitalism".
Someone who is trying to build a business they can sell when they retire, or that they might leave to their kids, thinks on a completely different time scale. Smaller businesses are also run more by personal judgement and relationships than by rules and procedures.