Evangelion said:
You make it sound like companies have an obligation of going public. And what you may say MIGHT be true, you are also forgetting that most of the crummy companies in existence are public. Enron was public, Microsoft is public, Exxon is public, Chiquita is public. The list goes on. And you are forgetting that while in theory investors might force changes in the company, usually they don't. Only time they force changes are when the company is not delivering "enough" ROI for the investors. Investors are the primary reason why we have "quarter-capitalism", where long-term benefits are sacrificed for short-term profits.
Personally I believe all companies not only have an obligation to go public, but have an obligation to surrender the entire control held by the board of directors to the state which is controled absolutely by the public, thereby allowing for the involvement of interests other than those financial and allowing actual democracy to pervade rather than increasingly fascist corporatocracy.
Not that I think Apple is particularly one of the companies creating that trend, it's fairly good in that regard, and I hope to see them make a real effort to improve conditions in the iPod City.
Microsoft on the other hand, regardless of how piss poor their software is, is notoriously ruthless towards workers, other businesses, even public serivces, and definately contributes to the overall erosion of both democracy and any kind of "Wealth of Nations" free market capitalism that remains the only partially benevolent flavour of said economic system.
It's very true, investors rarely act upon non-financial interests, but occasionally. Still, this is what happens when the only method of interaction with a coroporation is through the buying and selling of stocks and products.
Such is the success of neo-liberalism; it's impossible to express social human concerns with the language of GDP and quarter profits imposed by the unanimous corporate landscape of the modern world.
Personally I'd rather pay a lot more for my Macs, have them updated a lot less often and even suffer decreases in the rate of performance improvements, if it meant that the people who manufactured the computers were paid enough to sustain themselves and their families in comfortable, suitable housing with enough money left over for an enjoyable life.
Morality over Mhz!
