In fact, American corporate ideology wasn’t always like this. The shareholder value mantra [0] emerged in the 70s as an excuse to justify any and all callousness convenient to management, no matter how unpalatable to society and everyone else. And now people all over this site and the world over repeat it as some sort of axiom of capitalism, which it is not. Before the Friedman Doctrine there was a very different understanding of the partnership between corporations and people.

[0] https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/equities/fri...