Because lobbyists get angry and markets get nervous when you mandate a change overnight, but no one seems to care if people get nervous angry

Something about heavy and light crude oil, and some head scratching decisions that involve shipping things around the world

No no no... It's not democracy, it's abstraction

Democracy would be a worker owned business. Where the people who do the thing decide how it should be done. And it's great, it makes sense, it's ethical, and the decisions are made democratically by the most informed people

Stock markets don't work like that. At one point you had voting, but now it's all speculation and layers of abstraction

Do you think the shareholders know or care how the business is being run? No, they just want line go up, because they've got a dozen other places to shift the money to if it's not going up fast enough

They don't know or care if the company is dumping chemicals into the lake until the rest of us do. They don't know that the cars are dangerous, but it was cheaper to set aside money for damages.

They aren't part of the company at all - they have no responsibility for what the company does. They have no control... Except, collectively. Maybe they could join together to replace a board member or sell to lower the price negligably. And the board has a responsibility to the shareholders. And the CEO just listens to the same consultant the shareholders do

So really, it's no one's fault.

Chick fila donates to hate groups, but they also front the money for new franchise owners. Costco pays well. Arizona iced tea doesn't raise their prices because they have no debt and the guy says he's making enough money.

Yes, you're going to have shit heads and good people... But as bad as my pillow guy is I'd be shocked if he was knowingly poisoning people... That usually weighs on a person's conscience, but not so much if they can diffuse the responsibility

Yes. Unambigiously.

What would you rather have, one person with a ton of power making decisions, or abstract it out over a group and diffuse all responsibility?

Both are bad, but one of them has a (likely not morally great) person at the top, the other has lots of robber barons sharing ownership and collectively demanding line go up

A person isn't usually dumb enough to fire half their workforce, because they know their bread and butter comes from that workforce. A consulting company advising the business and shareholders at the same time can easily do such stupidity for short term profits