One argument. 97% of the wastestream in the U.S. is created at the industrial/business level. Who are the decision makers at this level if not the owners? Okay, say it's the CEO/executive suite. How are they currently likely to be motivated in their decision making? Most likely stock options. So, for example, if it's cheaper due to labor costs to simply dump industrial waste rather than to recycle it or find a secondary market, that will be the most efficient path towards staying competive and maximizing profits and maximizing the self-interest of decision makers.jacob wrote:Owning shares might be a moral issue, but in terms of the ecological or social impacts of a given corporation, it does not really matter who owns the shares(*)(**). What matters for its existence as a ongoing concern is whether there's a demand for the products and services that the corporation provides and that is determined by how much consumers spend, that is, whether there's a revenue or not.
When you run your own small business, even at the level of applying frugality to bring your costs down to zero in some realm for your household, you are clearly outsourcing less of your decision making. For instance, even in my current micro-1099-contract-tutoring business which is service-oriented (as opposed to product oriented= many more material streams to be considered), I have to make decisions such as whether to use paper and pencil vs. mini-dry-erase boards and markers. When I was a used book dealer, I had to figure out what to do with the books I had purchased that I determined I couldn't profit by selling, and I went to the trouble/expense of returning them into the tertiary market rather just throwing them in a dumpster. OTOH, when I was the inventory manager for a very large corporate bookstore, brand new mass market paperbooks that didn't sell were processed by ripping off their covers to return to publisher, and putting the bulk of the remaining books into the dumpster.
Yes, but it's more complex than this. There are very few businesses that can be designed with zero operating expenses and zero initial capital investment. So, achieving success with a BNY for a micro-business is more difficult than doing it for your own personal lifestyle. For instance, my students can and do complain when I make them "use up" the dry erase markers that are almost dry and recycled shipping envelopes for rare books are more likely to rip in transit leading to customer complaints than plastic-bubble-wrap variety, etc. etc.OTOH, as to @kane's remark. Those who run a business, like a mom&pop business or a dog&pony show (like mine), where they have control could make a significant difference applying a BN(lets just remove the Y)-attitude. I also know of examples where two different businesses essentially produce the same amount of services but where the operating margins are close to 100% and close to 0% respectively and that to a large degree comes down to the "CEO"'s attitude to spending.
AND, if you are attempting to be more ethical in your decision-making as a small business person actually immersed in the results of your decisions, you still have to compete with the less thoughtful practices of the CEOs whose short-term profit-maximizing decision-making behavior is passively condoned by every investor who passively buys another share of an index fund.
So, I guess what I am suggesting (not necessarily recommending as anything approaching likely to best improve anybody's short or medium term net worth !!:lol: ) is something like why not take the money you save by creatively reducing your expenses to zero in some previously consumer category of your life, and instead of investing it in an index fund (or any other distant, diluted, decision-delegated realm of endeavor) use it to capitalize some endeavor(s) either beyond zero-expense to making-some-profit OR beyond individual/household to community/bioregion level? For instance, buy the supplies to start your own mushroom growing business and set up an independent community-based ISP. By doing this you will also be simultaneously creating all sorts of purposeful activities and meaningful relationships for yourself, so you will nevee be tempted to go back to 9-5 just because you are bored and kind of lonely.
IOW, it seems to me that there is some sort of moat(s) of risk or some sort of form(s) of "creative destruction" that must occur to move from ERE1 to ERE2, and I am just suggesting that it might involve letting go of the comfortable or comforting metaphor that likens a corporation yielding dividends to a mature apple tree yielding fruit.