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Comment by bfg_9k | Hacker News Reader

Believe it or not, businesses don't exist to provide you a "good service" they exist to make money. So yes, they do in fact force firms to operate better when they attain a higher EBITDA.

Until the definition of why a business exists changes, you can purely measure a business success over how much money it makes for the owner, legally.

Should that be the case? No, I don't agree. But as it currently stands, that's how things are.

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>Believe it or not, businesses don't exist to provide you a "good service" they exist to make money.

This is a common misconception. Businesses actually exist to serve the public interest, which is why some kinds of businesses are illegal. The premise of capitalism isn't that it maximizes individual wealth, but that it maximizes the general welfare of the population.

Only some fringe definitions meet that. Maybe Adam Smith and Stiglitz. I deeply wish more westerners talked about Adam Smith and Stiglitz. But modern definitions of capitalism omit the words people, public, and welfare.

Definition and description do not necessarily include purpose. You could define a hammer very precisely without ever mentioning that its purpose is to drive nails. And since it's in the best interest of capital to minimize the original purpose of capitalism, and capital increasingly dominates public and political discourse, it's not surprising that the public interest angle would be increasingly ignored. But corporations and private property, the cornerstones of capitalism, are both purely creations of government, and both are subject to regulation in the public interest. We just need the political will to do so.

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