It’s not even “rainbow capitalism.”
This goes all the way back to women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights era.
They didn’t start accepting women into the workforce and blacks into the workforce because they saw them as valuable humans just for existing.
They realized they were leaving money on the table. If women had money, they could be marketed products, if blacks had money, they could marketed products. That was “opening up new markets.” Hiring them meant they would get paid and have money in their pockets to spend at your business.
Every single group that got attention and understanding was about being able to exploit them for more money. The only color they’ve ever cared about is the green on their money. This is also why it’s been such an uphill battle for anyone disabled, because if you can’t maximize your output by absolutely destroying your body and mind for capital: they don’t want you.
Further, if you get enough money to do some capitalism yourself and create something like “Black Wall Street” they’ll bomb the living fuck out of you to put a stop to it.
NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Corporations were never your friend. They were never going to defend you.
They were going to defend you for as long as doing so remained profitable.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
I like to say that corporations will never go out of their way to be charitable. There’s always a bottom line, being it PR or direct profit. Even PR and Marketing spend has to eventually lead to increase in profit.
1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Or avoid a decrease in profit, which is why you get so many posturing bandwagons which slow down once enough people have forgotten that it won’t affect profits anymore, eg all the statements and policy, name, logo etc changes due to BLM in mid-late 2020
jballs@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I had a management class years ago in college where the professor made the argument that in order to be ethical, every single action a business makes must be done to increase profits for its shareholders.
Charitable donation? Only if it increases public perception in a way to be justified the cost.
Pay your employees well? Only if paying them less would cause you to lose them to your competitors.
The list goes on. It’s a very depressing way to look at the world. But as time goes by, I’ve realized just how accurate that professor was. Companies don’t give a shit about you and will turn on you the second it makes their quarterly numbers look better.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
That’s the problem of thinking of companies as people. Company operate like ruthless people people they usually responde to several stakeholders that all control the company like an ouija board.