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Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

nytimes.com

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Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#21

Post by dev_dull »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual…

This whole discussion is so tired to me. I’d like to see organizations who genuinely want to end inequality to start compensation transparency practices. Let’s see the numbers and we’ll decide for ourselves. After all, it’s not in our interest that salaries are so closely guarded.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#22

Post by kolbe »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual…

I don't think it's too unfair to read deeper into Marc's motives. Salesforce has never been interested in noble pursuits like making high quality products. They've been interested in creating moats to rent seek off of. They've been interested in promising functionality, then making it too hard for clients to leave once they find out its deficiencies.

To that end, I'm sure Marc wants regulation because he knows that paying lawyers $5m a year to adhere to them is no big problem for Saleforce to pay, but it will sure as hell prevent Paul Graham from being able to seed a new company to disrupt Marc's fortune. And he will quote whatever statistic is necessary to accomplish that goal.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#23

Post by bschne »

jasonlfunk wrote: post #16

Sure it would be great for business leaders to change their ways, but the beauty of capitalism is that consumers can force businesses to change by their actions. Mark Zuckerberg could change Facebook overnight, but what incentive does he have? It’s still one of the most populous websites in the world. It’s easy to blame to rich and wealthy for the problems but they cannot force us to give them money. Every time I buy…

If you take a very simplistic model of how the economy works, this is true.

The problem is when you get into a situation/equilibrium where enabling business practices that you consider to be bad for society as a whole is the rational choice because anything else will just leave you out-competed by someone else who doesn't care.

I am not saying that this makes it OK to do whatever because "everyone does" or "if I don't, someone else will", I'm just saying that appealing to individuals to just "do the right thing" has almost never worked to efficiently/swiftly bring about changes like this.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#24

Post by [deleted] »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual…

[deleted]

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#25

Post by blamestross »

formatkaka wrote: post #2

EDIT: [Removed]

We have a lot of evidence it works on small scales (something like half of marriages work out). That might seem silly, but I would call it "minimum viable Communism".

I'd like to see a concerted effort for many small-scale communes (sub Dunbar's number) to be more legally viable in the US. The problem with Communism at scale is that the logistics and planning beurocracies end up authoritarian, but it seems optimal at smaller scales.

Our implementation of capitalism has experienced a lot of regulatory capture and that needs some work. Democracy and capitalism are also totally compatible with a bit more public infastructure and an a more accessible healthcare system.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#26

Post by weberc2 »

grenoire wrote: post #19
weberc2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you account for other factors, like flexibility and other benefits, you get within the margin of error--women may even out-earn men.

As a rule of thumb, if you would like to not get downvoted for controversial statements, please source your assumptions.

Downvotes are fine with me; I don't put much stock in Internet points. I'm not trying to be persuasive in my single-sentence internet quip; if people care to learn more, they can do their own research.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#27

Post by anonuser123456 »

Miner49er wrote: post #5

Well, he gave a nice list of problems caused by capitalism, and said we need a new capitalism, but gave no reason why. Why a new capitalism? Why not something different, like market socialism, where the shareholders are the employees?

What prevents employees from buying shares today?

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#29

Post by BurningFrog »

croon wrote: post #3

> When government is unable or unwilling to act, business should not wait. I hope this is all based in good intentions, and have no real reason not to believe so, other than past experience. I just had this idea though: Seeing the current state of US regulatory capture; I wonder what would happen if companies that felt the way Marc Benioff claims he does (as well as the other companies in that roundtable) would just…

If you don't lobby for your selfish interests, you'll get out-regulated by companies who do. Lobbying is not an optional luxury. You have to do it. At least in politically sensitive industries.

As a partially made up example, I'm guessing the plastic straw industry didn't think they had to lay a groundwork lobbying for their existence over the decades. And now they're dead.

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