Has this always been true of the decision makers at all corporations for all time?

I suspect societal morals do still carry some weight. And the corps do listen if the backlash is loud enough.

Not really and not all companies are like this even today. E.g. I knew someone who ran a business repairing some equipment for other businesses. He wasn't hustling. He wasn't interested in expanding globally. He wasn't battling competitors or doing anything like that. He was friends with his clients and workers, and ran a business that brought in enough to pay everyone fairly and that was that. Probably 25 workers I'd guess, if that.

Of course its different when you are a public company or take on a lot of investor money.

Most corporations are not run by psychopaths (even the big ones); the idea that they are has become a sort of meme, with little evidence in its favor, and a great deal against it. There's even a book about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychopath_Test

Perhaps psychopath might be an exaggeration here but the primary desire for many is to grow income. The options chosen generally favor the path of least/resistance.

Until there's a law mandating morality in business decision making, why should a business entity care? Perhaps it might find comfort in using morality as a differentiator, but the companies that primarily focus on morality are the exception, not the norm.

i don't think you'll find widespread agreement on what's moral or not. what's moral for you maybe abhorrent to someone else. there's not necessarily any absolute good or bad, it's all a matter of perspective.

Consider the lamentably frequent situation where a corporation does something that would get a human person sent to prison or be subjected to a severe fine, but escapes with a token punishment. In some cases corporations become repeat offenders because the statutory penalties, though still for an individual, are small enough for a corporation that they can be accepted as a cost of doing business.

Sure, morality is subjective to an extent but not every company is Ben and Jerry’s or REI, two companies that are the poster-children of the more-ethical side of corporations.

One company actual advertised that they were looking for a psychopaths to fill their new business media sales executive position because they wanted someone who was money driven and willing to do "whatever it takes".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/psychopath-...

Don't know how many of big biz leaders are psychopaths, but many of them don't seem to be nice people

Elon refusing to pay ex-Twitter employees what they are owed in severance, Zuck wasting Billions of dollars on his shitty Metaverse idea while firing tens of thousands to save money at the same time, Facebook/Google etc hiring thousands of people during Covid without any plan except to pad their numbers (and prevent competitors from hiring those employees) only to fire them a couple of years later, people like that WeWork dude (don't even know where to begin), apps like Uber screwing over their drivers, forcing people to commute to office for no reason.... and on and on

The question is about the 'pretending' - if they pollute less or exploit their employees less to make more money based on the good PR, is that 'pretending'? I would say no, if we're interested in results more than motivation.

It's still pretending. Sometimes it works out for us, but don't forget that as soon as they feel that they'll make more money by polluting more or exploiting workers more they'll do those things.

Be cautious about putting your faith in an image spun by PR campaigns and advertisers. Corporations have shown time and again that they're perfectly happy to lie, greenwash, and spend huge amounts of money to keep up their PR appearances while not always living up the that image. If we're interested in results, we need better transparency and accountability than what we have. Too often what we get is just a comforting fantasy.

That's fair, but if they backslide we can at least serve up bad PR to bring them back into line, possibly? I agree though that there's always the chance they'll calculate the savings from being evil out weigh the costs of bad PR...