Posted on 10/13/2019 7:20:20 AM PDT by DoodleBob
On August 19, the definition of a company in America changed. The Business Roundtable, a U.S. lobbying group that represents nearly 200 companies, issued a statement proclaiming that the “purpose” of a business in 2019 was no longer to look out merely for shareholders. It was to protect the interests of all “stakeholders”—employees, partners, suppliers, communities, the environment, the very world itself. The group’s lofty statement seemed to reorient the role of a public company from the maximization of profit to the maximization of goodness.
’Twas a lovely sentiment. And it lasted about 50 days. This week, the news dunked all over the Business Roundtable’s new definition.
The story started, as things often do these days, with a deleted tweet. Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, publicized on Twitter his support for Hong Kong protesters, who are demanding a variety of civil-liberty protections from mainland China and the Hong Kong police. The tweet disappeared almost immediately.
But the damage was done. Chinese companies, furious over public sympathy for Hong Kong, were swift in their vengeance. They suspended licensing agreements with the NBA. They blacklisted the Rockets, historically the most popular U.S. basketball team in China, by barring them from appearing on state TV. The partnership between the NBA and China, which is worth billions of dollars over the next decade, is now in jeopardy.
The NBA—so proudly progressive on a range of civil-rights issues in the U.S.—torched its reputation. The league moved swiftly to condemn Morey’s advocacy for democratic rights; the NBA discouraged players from commenting on Chinese policy; and pro–Hong Kong signs were confiscated at exhibition games in Washington, D.C....
...But if the NBA is cowardly, and Marriott is shameful, and colleges are hypocrites, then what are we, the consumers, in this equation?
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
A word about the headline.
“Capitalism” is a negative Marxist term for basically the Free Market.
The Free Market is an accurate term for an economy run by the voluntary cooperation between buyers and sellers without government interference. The by-product of the Free Market is wealth creation (why America is so rich).
If you’re a Patriot, PLEASE STOP using the Marxist term “capitalism” (and “greed”) and talk in terms of the free market (and God-given self interest).
God I love it when Hippocritters are caught in a politically correct bear trap. The NBA is nothing but a bunch of bully pussy corporate communists.
My non-interest in spectator sports is justified. Go ahead and contribute to the paychecks of people who kneel during the National Anthem, or governments that suppress and mass-murder their people. That’s entertainment.
I would say free market + property rights, but yes, we are in strong agreement.
The ‘Free Market’ and ‘Free Trade’ ends at the water’s edge.
Fair enough, but the writer is saying anyone who buys stuff Made in China is as guilty of hypocrisy as “woke” spectator sports. This is where the left will take this discussion.
Patriots believe in free market capitalism INSIDE the USA - between the 50 states. But that ends at the water’s edge. THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT PROTECT “FREE TRADE” WITH OTHER NATIONS. Actually the opposite is true.
True this.
Sorry Free Traitors™, but the ‘Free Market’ has Constitutional, political and geographic bounds.
I find this...amusing.
They laid down with dogs and now they have fleas.
That’s why at least I look for other sources of goods or do without. I will buy stuff made anywhere but Communist China, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. The real axis of evil.
NBA is stupid, lost global view, sucking at the breast of the Dragon of the East
The free market ends when professional sports connected owners have their stadiums and arenas subsidized and built by all taxpayers. Professional sports have become the ultimate political swamp, when they should be an entertainment business that is neither political nor subsidized.
Except for LEGITIMATE taking of private property for public use (constitutionally rare), the feds have no constitutional right to touch your property. (A state’s power is guided by the citizens of that state.)
The feds also generally have no right to interfere with the marketplace. The problem is there is so many America citizens don’t understand that.
Americans need to understand that the Constitution is the ONLY legal bulwark of freedom against the tyranny of the totalitarian feds.
So says central_va, FR’s resident socialist.
That said, we also have to realize that no matter what system is put in place, there will be those who endeavor to exploit it or mutate it for their own ends - and who don't ‘play by the rules’ in doing so.
Globalism and Free Market economics are not synonymous, and there will always be geopolitical issues and pressures that poison the usual mechanics of Free Market economics, such as the manipulation of labor and prices, and ‘market flooding strategies used by the Chicoms.
IOW, there will always be those (mainly the Left, nationally and internationally) that attack and try to defeat freedom - economic, political, or personal. The Left hates freedom because freedom is per se anti-government tyranny and the Left loves tyranny.
So the Left attacks freedom. It is what they do. And they always try to disguise what they are doing by doing things like using vague, lying labels like “capitalism”.
But don’t focus on those that hate and attack freedom. Focus on what it takes to recover our Free Constitutional Republic.
And (asking Patriots in general), please use the accurately descriptive term “free market” because again, economic freedom from government interference is what wealth creation is all about and attacking freedom (from government interference) is what the opposition is really all about.
No, Capatalism is a good word. I’m not going to let commies dictate my speech.
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