Like, what even would Slack be expected to do here for housing or health care? Slack can't change zoning regulations. They can't force hospitals to provide price transparency. Why expect them to do something, rather than just take their money and have the government do something with it, when the government has vastly more authority to act?
Is this really a black and white issue, do or don’t? I don’t feel that way at all.
Do you think private companies can “contribute” to the solutions alongside the government and the public, by being open to hiring non traditional workers, by having support programs that help people keep their jobs? Can companies encourage and support the government’s support programs, by enrolling the government’s help and joining together to pay for them, by writing corporate policy to foster non-traditional workers, by making work allowances for people who need more help?
> when the government has vastly more authority to act
I don’t agree with this framing. Large and small companies get local zoning laws changed all the time. If Slack was lobbying for zoning regulations near it’s business, it’s entirely likely they can, in fact, get them changed. Companies can, and do routinely, suggest regulation changes, participate in policy making, and the government listens and routinely acts on those requests, and involves private companies in the legislation process. When companies band together to get zoning changed, it happens even faster.
The government does not really have that much more “authority” than the rest of us when it comes to the basics of taking care of each other. This isn’t really an authority issue, it’s an issue of whether we care and take action, it’s an issue of what our goals are as a society, it’s an issue of whether we view it as our collective responsibility, or someone else’s responsibility. If we all think it’s someone else’s responsibility, and we do nothing and think of the government as the only solution, then we not only end up with a crappy solution, we are ceding our own authority as well.
If you look at this in a vacuum, I can see how that'd be attractive. But consider that this will obviously cost them -- and whatever other companies do the same -- money. Now, would you rather all those companies independently pursuing different ways of helping on a particular issue piecemeal, or that the government extract the money that would've been spent pursuing a more cohesive and coherent effort?
> Do you think private companies can “contribute” to the solutions alongside the government and the public, by being open to hiring non traditional workers, by having support programs that help people keep their jobs?
That's not the part I was responding to. When Slack accepts felons or Google uses renewable energy for data centers, that's being a good corporate citizen in the act of conducting their regular business. I think that's fine and good.
But what I quoted, was someone suggesting that Slack assist with things completely outside the scope of their business, like housing. Slack has nothing to do with housing, so the principle underlying that comment must be, "Slack should help these people (and maybe the community at large) in general, even in ways that have nothing to do with their business".
> Large and small companies get local zoning laws changed all the time.
Just look at the bay area as an example. Basically every company would LOVE to massively upzone everywhere for both office space and housing (because this benefits them), these companies are rich as hell, and yet they're woefully impotent at getting these things changed. The broader culture, especially for the politically connected, is against them, and they can do very little about that. Trying to swing their weight around would just result in a huge backlash, as many are already skeptical of how powerful they are.
> If Slack was lobbying for zoning regulations near it’s business, it’s entirely likely they can, in fact, get them changed.
I'm sorry, but this betrays ignorance of bay area politics. Even Google struggles to get changes, and they're ridiculously massive. Slack might be able to get changes if they were moving to a less popular city for tech that's more desperate for jobs, but if they stay in SF, they have very little influence. SF is lousy with high paying tech jobs, most people there don't really fear any particular company moving away, and thus the companies have little leverage relative to how rich they are.
I’d agree with what you said because the reason you gave seems strong & compelling to me; the idea that profit motive might corrupt charity if in charge.
On the other hand, I dislike the idea that only government should “handle” social responsibility. (I think what we’re talking about is responsibility, not charity.) And in fact, today there are laws requiring social responsibility of the private sector, so in a very real sense it actually is their job.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibil...
The kind of thinking that separates the people & companies making money from helping our social outcasts, or just giving back to society in general, is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to having more social outcasts and growing income inequality. When rich people argue they should have no responsibility to pay taxes into social programs, what we end up with is more people who need social programs. Why shouldn’t it be everyone’s job to handle social improvement, including all the companies profiting from the environment that makes their profits possible?
> it’s the government that sets the tax rate and decides where revenue goes, not the private sector.
While that might be technically accurate, it seems misleading to frame it this way. The private sector has such massive influence on tax policy, it doesn’t even make sense to suggest the government does it and the private sector doesn’t. Lots of laws are effectively written by and for private companies, enough so that we have a serious problem with it and a name for it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture