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masque wrote

In addition to the fact that unethical companies have a competitive advantage over ethical ones as pointed out by ziq, another factor is the fact that a hypothetical "ethical" company, which seeks to be profitable only to the extent that it allows the company to continue providing & improving some good or service, is not necessarily going to be aiming for growth in the way that bigger corporations are.

Investors want growth because they make money as the value of their shares grows, but a more traditional "ethical" business that isn't worry about attracting investors can be successful (in the sense of being profitable) without ever aspiring to be big. So ethical companies (to the extent that they exist) might be more likely to remain small than unethical ones.

Also, as a company gets bigger, the impact of individual people and their values on the direction of the company decreases, and the company becomes more beholden to bureaucracy, market forces, the hive-mind of its investors, and so on. And the goal that internal bureaucratic procedures, market pressures, executives, and investors all consistently push the company towards is success in the capitalist market. Any other goal will be relevant to only some components of the complex system that is a corporation, and will likely be drowned out.

Finally, there's the argument that no for-profit company is truly ethical, since any profit must, by necessity, be stolen from the workers in some sense.

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