I think this is more than a bit naive. Companies have a wide variety of values. Some certainly do the best they can for their hires as they’re able, others very shrewdly extract every bit of value they can. Most fall in between in a variety of ways.

But assuming the best intent is just plain ahistorical. We’re only a century out from when companies routinely hired armed security services to threaten and ultimately murder people organizing to get their share of what wealth they created. That’s widely understood to be excessive now and those of us in privileged career positions take that for granted, but I think it’s worth remembering that some people still have that to survive and most of the rest of us are navigating a kinder gentler version.

"routinely hired armed security services to threaten and ultimately murder people organizing to get their share of what wealth they created"

To be honest that sounds to me as if those people "organized" to take by force what they thought they deserved. In that case, hiring security for defense seems justified.

Welcome to the dueling value systems of labor since feudalism I guess? But the “force” used by labor wasn’t violent, just large scale solidarity.

Of course not.

But you mention causation. You have to treat your employees well if you want to be successful. It is necessary, but not sufficient.

It just seems too simplistic to me. Sometimes there is struggle.

Taking an extreme example, soldiers at war. Are they generally being treated well? I'm not sure they are, and I don't necessarily mean deliberately. I don't think generals want their soldiers to be killed, in general. It just happens that situations arise where there is struggle and soldiers get killed.

I remember complaints about CD Projekt Red (makers of Cyberpunk 2077) who had to ask for death marches despite of initial promises to ever do so. I don't think they liked doing that, but presumably the business situation made it necessary.

Considering how quickly CP2077 became profitable I doubt it's a good example of necessary death marches. Quite the opposite. I suspect they could have delayed until winter 2021 and still turned a profit easily.

They would have had to survive long enough, though. Profits in the future don't help you to pay your bills in the present.

Considering the success of Witcher, GOG.com, and their preorders it's unlikely they would have gone under.

CD Projekt Red also has a profit sharing arrangement with its employees, that not only means they're getting compensated better than they likely could with most other game developers (certainly other Polish ones), but also created the pressure for a death march. The further the game was delayed, the less time for sales within the year (including missing Christmas rush and the like), which would reduce profit for the year, and directly impact employee compensation.

So the pressure to deliver sooner rather than later also directly benefited the employees financially, even if it negatively affected their time and work/life balance.

Their marketing outright lying about the progress and leadership not caring made it "necessary" to catch up.

Why, what would have happened if they hadn't? Say they promised it for some time, and then don't deliver on time. Then what?

Then presumably some people would have been disappointed.

So instead they decided to crunch and deliver a buggy game with the result that other people were so disappointed that they didn’t buy it.

I don’t know which is the bigger group, but I wish they would have delayed it.