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Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

I don't want any publicly owned companies to get involved in politics, no donations, no comments, no lobbying, nothing.

Just stay out of it.

If the CEO wants something that he feels is good for his company let him donate personally.

Privately held companies can do what they want.

The reason I'm opposed is that the CEO is putting his opinion into the mouth of his shareholders, who may or may not share his opinion. The shareholders hire the CEO to decide things related to the company, but not political things.

There are obviously gray areas like laws the impact the company directly, but I think people can handle those case by case, with the general policy of stay out of it.

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> The reason I'm opposed is that the CEO is putting his opinion into the mouth of his shareholders, who may or may not share his opinion.

How is intervention in politics differenr from anything else a corporations management does, all of which is notionally in the interest of the shareholders, which (through the board) delegate authority to the CEO, hire the CEO, provide feedback and direction to the CEO, and fire the CEO of he strays unacceptably from their preferences?

There's something to this, but it's also possible for shareholders to divest from companies that don't share their political views (in the same way that you can refuse to work for or buy from a company whose views you hate.)

Not if you buy index funds you can't. And index funds are the best way to invest.

To be fair...

That's an opportunity for an ideology based index fund.

Of course, having said that...

I'm not sanguine about the relative performance of such an instrument.

I would be surprised if it did as well monetarily standard index funds, though that would be rather beside the point. The set of companies in which a morally aligned index fund may invest is, by design, smaller than the set of companies in which an amoral index fund may invest, and so they may be intentionally passing over profitable companies.

One of my favorite quotations is from A Man for All Seasons, with Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More. "If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11743305

These already exist, they're just expensive.

Why not? It would just mean getting out of those funds, and taking a hit putting your money somewhere less friendly to your wallet but more friendly to your ideology.

Yes, you can't optimally serve the interest of narrow financial profit while optimally serving other, conflicting interests.

You have to make choices, and those choices have costs.

Then if you have a big enough problem, forego the benefits of index funds.

A liberal, globalist politics really IS best for Google, Apple, Microsoft and many others, and thus it is correct for their leaders to say so. If you on the other hand dislike liberal globalism, then you have the choice to divest from/not profit from those companies. (Alternatively, you could invest in them as a kind of personal diversification.)

A lot of corporate political posturing is just marketing. For example, Bud Light sponsors gay pride as marketing presuming that it's a positive ROI. Even if investors have anti-gay politics they don't object because they're in it for the money and they trust that management knows what it's doing.

As Tim Cook said, "if you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

If you don't like what the company leadership says or does, you always have the option to sell your ownership and start a new company with your values and opinions.

In the meantime, public or private companies that take stances on issues like this can empower their employees, gain new customers, and enjoy the freedom to express their values.

So do immigration laws affect a company directly? Like the existence of a H1b program? How about requirements to cover same sex partners of your employees with your company health insurance? How about laws on maternity leave? How about proposals for public transit that your employees could take from SF to mountain View? What about data privacy laws that conflict between the EU and the US? What political topics are you thinking of that are irrelevant to most companies?

That's not how it works. Companies do lobbying at every level of government all the time.

It speaks more about you than anything else the fact that you find it awful when it's about a very vocal political cause, yet you probably don't consider that in order for companies to build infrastructure, modify the law for things that benefit them economically, and so on, there's indeed a high level of political participation.

> that you find it awful when it's about a very vocal political cause

No, I hate it in every situation. I didn't read the article so I don't know what political cause you are referring to, and I certainly was not referring to one.

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