asparisi comments on Is ruthlessness in business executives ever useful? - Less Wrong

-3 Post author: Desrtopa 28 December 2012 07:46PM

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Comment author: asparisi 29 December 2012 12:18:33AM 0 points [-]

Where is the incentive for them to consider the public interest, save for insofar as it is the same as the company interest?

It sounds like you think there is a problem: that executives being ruthless is not necessarily beneficial for society as a whole. But I don't think that's the root problem. Even if you got rid of all of the ruthless executives and replaced them with competitive-yet-conscientious executives, the pressures that creates and nurtures ruthless executives would still be in place. There are ruthless executives because the environment favors them in many circumstances.

Comment author: Desrtopa 29 December 2012 12:53:52AM 1 point [-]

I'm not arguing that the core of the problem is that business executives are too ruthless. But I do suspect that to the extent that the current system rewards ruthlessness, it may be purely or almost purely due to ways in which it deviates from a system that offers no perverse incentives from a societal perspective.