Pollution Increases Profits

There are three ways that a business can increase profits.

1. Increase sales 
2. Reduce costs
3. Mitigate or prevent catastrophic damages

Increasing sales, of course, is the holy grail of business management. Any business leader will claim it to be their priority, but it usually demands creativity, innovation, and long-term planning and investment. The leadership involved is rarer than we would like.

Preparing for catastrophes is very speculative. In many cases, it resembles the buying of insurance. There is no guarantee that a catastrophe will happen, or that the insurance will be sufficient for it. That makes this a difficult management decision, which again demands leadership and foresight.

That brings us to the "Reduce costs" option. The only skill involved in cutting costs is accounting. Any spending that does not directly affect the delivery of product to the customer is a candidate for elimination. An enterprise that is lacking in strong and capable leadership will see cost reduction as the first path out of balance sheet stress.

That brings us to the environmental impact of business. From the point of view of a manufacturer, the clean-up of its waste byproducts is a pure cost. It adds nothing to the product or service that the enterprise is selling, so it directly subtracts from the business's revenue and profit.

The short form of the story: Pollution Increases Profits.

Why is this important? A recent book, “The Golden Passport,” by business journalist Duff McDonald, is an indictment of the Harvard Business School's current philosophy and its impact on the future managers of businesses nationwide (and worldwide). His key point is “when students enter business school, they believe that the purpose of a corporation is to produce goods and services for the benefit of society.” “When they graduate,” he continues, “they believe that it is to maximize shareholder value.”

There is the connection. Maximizing shareholder value is fancy code words for "more profit". This aim for corporations erases any ethical basis for their existence. When the "benefit of society" is removed from the corporate mission statement, pollution, financial corruption, and political manipulation become tools to "maximize shareholder value". 

As long as our political system operates for the benefit of the worshippers of the god "Mammon", who see corporate profits (and their share of them) as the only measure of greatness, most working Americans will suffer. They will face economic inequality, environmental degradation, and all the dysfunctions that go along with them.