Microsoft - $135 million in cash, $922 million in product
Cisco - $41 million in cash, $245 million in product
AT&T - $112 million in cash, $7 million in product
Verizon - $56 million in cash, $32 million in product
While these companies are around primarily to make a profit, I'm sure that their $460 million dollars in cash donations sure helped a lot of people. Not to mention all the jobs they create (also helping people), the wealth they generate for their shareholders (also helping people), and the individual charitable donations of those shareholders.
http://www.businessinsider.com/most-generous-companies-in-am...
Another approach might be to take the charity money away from the companies, and have those funds distributed to worthy causes by a democratically appointed body instead: giving the money to causes that benefit everyone, not just the company's PR department. You could call this system 'taxation'.
A case study: Flint water. Nobody's done anything about it for years. Now there's a PR opportunity so Elon's going to fix it. The people of Flint will get drinkable water (hopefully) and Elon will get another PR lift. This problem could have been fixed years ago (and perhaps should never even have happened), but the people who decide when these big social problems get fixed is no longer the people (almost all of whom think it's an unacceptable travesty, especially in a rich, developed nation), but the billionaire class, who require something back in return.
They are more likely to spend it on things that make them look good, which has absolutely nothing to do with my point that these companies are helping people, even if their primary goal is not to help people.
> Another approach might be to take the charity money away from the companies, and have those funds distributed to worthy causes by a democratically appointed body instead: giving the money to causes that benefit everyone, not just the company's PR department. You could call this system 'taxation'.
All of these companies are taxed, according to the rules set by the democratically appointed body you mention. I don't understand why you included this part of your comment.
> This problem could have been fixed years ago (and perhaps should never even have happened), but the people who decide when these big social problems get fixed is no longer the people (almost all of whom think it's an unacceptable travesty, especially in a rich, developed nation), but the billionaire class, who require something back in return.
Just so I have this straight - you're saying the reason that the people of Flint haven't had their water problems fixed yet is because the billionaire class only cares about getting something in return from such an action?
I'd like you to tell me what exactly you think should have been done in Flint and how the billionaire class subverted the will of the American people by not doing it.
I'm sure the people that received Google's millions of dollars would disagree with that statement.
> If these companies truly cared for the people they are helping, they wouldn't even bother with the PR side of it at all.
Why? Does getting good PR from helping someone diminish the help that said person receives?
> if they intend to aid their own purposes, that is what will see the most benefit from their efforts.
I have not once disagreed with this statement - companies primary goal is to make a profit. However, they also provide a tremendous amount of help to those who need it and I don't think people should dismiss that so easily.
> They don't seem to be helping the little people like that Tanzanian hospital the way the developers did who found a free software solution.
It's easier for us to grasp a situation in which a few developers help out a few people who need it. It's not easy for us to parse "$150 million in charitable donations" in the same way, but I assure you there are thousands of "helping the little guy" stories you can craft out of $150 million.
Musk could have easily acted back when it happened. He didn't.
Even so, many would agree that Facebook and Google are charitable for giving their products away for free even if they extract value from them in other ways.
I specifically said "product" donations.
>Even so, many would agree that Facebook and Google are charitable for giving their products away for free
And they would be ignorant of the value of their information, attention spans, and technology in general. Many such people would also agree that "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about"
If you don't agree with a given company, stop giving them profit. Don't like Facebook? Stop using it. Don't care for Microsoft? Stop buying Windows and Office.
The only other option for controlling companies is government control - that has never worked out well longterm.
Add in a government compulsion to crack down on "bad speech" and we've circumvented free speech. Facebook has a right to not allow some content, but when Governments start setting standards across companies, what then?
In the UK, firearms talk is basically verboten. In the US, that's protected speech. Whose rules does Facebook follow? Or do we have a separate UK facebook?
Where is this written?
Unless you have a clear argument that all people have a prima facie duty to always do social good (mandatory volunteering?) then it seems very difficult to claim there's a special duty when multiple people group together. Does that duty affect the bake shop up the road? The bookshop that employs 20 people?
The idea that they are legally obliged only to maximise shareholder value is also a myth I'm pretty sure.
We can blame hacks like Friedman for that. His warped ideology doesn't jive with reality.
The CEO and other officers of a company have a stated, legal requirement to act in the companies best interest in regards to the shareholders. All commercial companies (let's ignore non-profits and such for a moment) are founded to generate profit for their shareholders since that is what in turn attracts shareholders.
> I believe everybody part of a society has a responsibility minimise or prevent the harm they do
That's a nice belief and it'd be great if it was true - but that's not an argument for an a priori duty to do social good. Let's just imagine for a moment that you, yourself, are legally obligated to do social good. What does that look like? Do you have a minimum amount of hours per week you're forced to do free work (eg, forced labor)? Can you get out of that by being forced to give some money to charity (eg, taxes)? What are the punishments if you don't execute your duty? Jail?
Imagine that system scaled up and applied just to everyone - each person individually. Forced labor, some kind of weird mandatory charity tax thing, and the threat of punishment if you don't comply - is that the kind of world you want to live in?
It's easy to demand other people do good. It's much harder to do good ourselves when it's our own time and money.
Tech is especially dangerous since it can automate vast amounts of things with very few people if capital is there.
It just makes me really sad how non-existent Seattle startup industry is compared to the valley. Almost everyone here works at the Big Cos Microsoft and Amazon.
These companies only work for making money and are not around to help people.
This other day a journalist asked a big computer game producing company why they are selling in-game stuff to kids (like Overwatch). They refused to answer. They are not around to help people.
A hospital in Tanzania was in dire need for an upgrade of there IT-system connecting a X-ray machine to doctors for image analysis. They had no budget. 2 helpful guys from Europe searched the Webb for free software. On there free time they built a system which they installed themselves. The big companies are not around to help people.