But "companies that care" don't exist on the stock market. They can't. They can only have strategies that allow people within the company who
do care to act morally. And those strategies will only remain in practice for as long as shareholders believe it's what will get them the biggest return. Microsoft's shareholders don't want their shares' value to grow any less than Mylan's or Shell's, and their reasons for investing aren't any more noble.
I agree that 51-49 is better than 99-1, but my point is that these immediate 51-49 transactions are allowances made by a company that thinks it
has to make them because it doesn't yet have the leverage to get 99-1. It is entirely conditional.
For example, Sony proudly touted the fact that online play on PS3 was free. It wasn't because it wanted the best for PlayStation owners, it was because the PS3 was floundering, and Sony knew it couldn't get away with charging for a less than impressive online component at a time when they needed all the goodwill they could get.
The moment Microsoft fucked itself and gave Sony the upper hand, Sony started charging for online play. Because it always wanted to, and now it finally could.
The chief justice of Delaware's supreme court wrote a really good essay a while back about the overriding nature of the profit motive. I don't fully agree with all its conclusions, but I think it's worth a read.
