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There is no such thing as competition. As soon as a business does something that sets it apart, it's immediately hounded by business school people who want to profit off of lowering standards and raising prices.

It's why everything is so expensive and wages are trash. The whole point of going to business school is to ensure that businesses are always doing the bare minimum while charging the maximum people are willing to pay.

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[-] AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social 45 points 4 days ago

The business school people are doing exactly what they are incentivized to do. This is the goal of capital, maximum extraction, minimum outlay. These contradictions are inherent to the very economic system, not simply the result of individual ghouls.

[-] anon6789@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago

I was in college in the late 90s and remember being in Intro to Business. One of the exercises we had was something about looking at a list of applicants and choosing who to hire. The teacher had looked over everything and got disgusted and read a bunch of replies in front of the class. The answers were basically all about who seemed to be the most exploitable at the advantage of the fictional company, ie who would work overtime they didn't want to but they had family to support, etc. He couldn't believe that people were looking at business that heartlessly.

It really gave me a bit to think about, and I remember that more than anything else from that class, but it seems a lot of others really felt they were on to something, since that seems to be how things played out. Maybe my teacher was too idealistic or this was still just Reagan era economic policy kicking in, but it does feel like this is the kind of business world we've built since then.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 26 points 4 days ago

My mother told me she took some sort of business class in college as an elective. The professor said something like "there are no ethics in business. There's only the law."

She dropped the course in disgust.

[-] Schal330@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Back when I was in my early 20's I once had an interview with the owner of an IT support business. He asked me what would I do if there was a sales person that was selling services that the company didn't have the skillset for, and I said something along the lines of stop the guy from miss selling, identity if what he is trying to sell is a genuine area for growth, skill up staff and then offer the service.

He said I was wrong, the sales person was doing his job perfectly and it was up to the rest of the company to try and figure out how to fill that gap. I was offered the job but turned it down as I didn't think that was ethical.

[-] prokyonid@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

The CEO of the company I work for pushes for that kind of selling. I stopped trying to sell that way after the third or fourth time it left me with either egg on my face or a deal we lost money on because we had to hire a subcontractor.

Had to have a conversation with the CEO about it once, said I figured it was better for us to potentially run out of work and waste payroll than to waste time and payroll trying to do something we knew we couldn't do and have to pay someone else to do it for us, while keeping the liability for ourselves.

[-] gustofwind@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago

MBA stands for maximally bad agents

If you know anyone who’s gone to business school you should disrespect them continuously

[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 12 points 4 days ago

Blame Reagan.

A big part of deregulating banks back in the 1980s was shifting away from expensive manufacturing to cheap financial services. Instead of investing in bringing US factories back, Reagan's polices sent the actual work overseas and left management here.

[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 4 days ago

And dodge brothers vs Ford forcing corps to only be for shareholders value

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago

And MAGAs will say Trump will fix this with the tariffs.

[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago

No, they'll tell you he already fixed it...

[-] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 days ago

You get that when deregulating one area at the expense of even further strangling others with regulations (a regulation keeping an oligopoly or a protectionist one is still regulation).

BTW, the most common visible problem of libertarian models. They get the absolutes right, but ignore the relative. This means that those following them ignore transient processes, and the model breaks halfway.

[-] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 1 points 4 days ago

Because Regan was the President of China when capitalism was enshrined.🙄

[-] DagwoodIII@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago

Regan

Ronald Reagan was President of the US from 1981 until January, 1989.

I tried to find information on the President of China in 1750 AD. Nothing came up.

[-] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 1 points 3 days ago

So Regan created capitalism⸮

[-] SanctimoniousApe@piefed.social 11 points 4 days ago

They had to be the kind of person to want to fuck everybody else over first - school just showed them how to accomplish their goals if they were selfish & driven enough to do so.

[-] FluorideMind@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

These people are causing civilization to break down. I'm certain they aren't prepared to deal with an uncivilized population.

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

With private equity taking over every aspect of daily lives, this is only going to get much worse.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 days ago

I want to argue with this, but it wouldn't be much of a rant community if it talked back.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 3 points 3 days ago
[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Well, since you're not OP.

Most stuff in the West, including businesses, is owned by kinda rich but mostly ordinary people - the 9% after the 1%. Furthermore, people have always tried to make money, and while big businesses are a lot more efficient at it today margins are much lower to compensate. There's no self-contained, small club getting easy money at the public's expense, which is what OP was implying.

A few things have gotten more expensive relative to wages. Some things are actually less expensive (clothes are a minor expense post-globalisation, a basic TV costs less than a really nice meal now), other things are kinda the same. The real trend has been the split between well paying jobs (like most of Lemmy has) and poorly paying jobs widening; the rest is "everything used to be better", which people are recorded saying all the way back through Socratese.

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."- Warren Buffet, 2006.

Figure it out lmao

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

One quote vs. a bunch of hard statistics, sources available on request.

It's not even a quote that contradicts what I said, when put in context, where it was about tax policy. Warren buffet is well aware of the gradualness of the wealth gap, and that there's no free lunch for corporations. His whole investment philosophy is built on the latter fact.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

"One quote"

"grAduAlnEsS oF tHe WeAlTh GaP"

🤡

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

Love you too.

[-] Solano@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago

They just leave all the ethics they were taught behind.

[-] StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Business school is only a symptom of the problem. I blame genetics! The type of people who hold this view have always, intentionally or not, made it look like the best system. Adopt this approach and those that began it, and their brethren will reward you. Alternately you'll do well anyway because ultimately it's the best way to make money. The problem is it's also the best way to make enemies if the greater balance isn't maintained. How is this genetic? Well I just think it's the way some people are wired. I know there's no doubt that you're environment plays a big roll, but in combination it can be catastrophic. Either way it doesn't seem anyone has recognized this. By that I mean society keeps getting sucked along and the decades of mentioning of anything of this sort, is quashed. When will we wake up? I'd like to add that once you gain more control it is easier the keep the ball rolling.

this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2025
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