When is the last time you had an interaction with a company that made you question your sanity?
Mine was with a long-term care insurance provider. My parents, both in their 80s, have paid for their policy for decades, so when my dad told me he had been struggling — unsuccessfully — to submit a claim, I figured I could easily resolve the problem. Ha. Instead, I found myself tangled in a Kafkaesque bureaucracy that was clearly designed to maximize a customer’s frustration until they give up. Communications went into the void. Forms were repeatedly lost or rejected for absurd reasons — and even when the company allowed it had received them, it was months before they were accepted, much less processed.
It was a textbook case of what I call predatory capitalism: companies’ increasingly common willingness to harm customers in their pursuit of short-term profits.
Illustration: Yusha
It is a notorious issue in the insurance industry (remember the wave of public rage directed at insurers after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson?), but it appears elsewhere as well. Take private equity-owned nursing homes, for example; research has found that when a private equity firm takes over, the quality of patient care decreases, as do quality ratings and patient mobility. Meanwhile, pain levels and short-term mortality increase.
Beyond healthcare, consider online gambling — particularly sports betting. In addition to draining the savings of those who could least afford it, these companies have been accused of using sophisticated analytics to target people with gambling disorders.
In fact, researchers said problem gamblers account for a hugely disproportionate fraction of online gambling revenue. The result? A University of California San Diego study found that when online sportsbooks enter a state, Internet searches seeking help for gambling addiction go up by 61 percent.
Companies seek profits. That is their job. And nothing that has been described here is illegal. However, the law does not dictate the bounds of ethics — particularly when companies have vast political power to shape the law for their own benefit. When businesses take advantage of that legal leeway to harm their customers, people’s faith in the system and in corporate leadership erodes. Some companies have always acted badly, but the public’s attitude toward business has changed radically in a generation.
Gallup polling showed that the percentage of Americans who have “a great deal” or “a lot” of confidence in big business has plunged from 30 percent in 1990 to 16 percent last year.
Why are businesses now so routinely predatory? It is rooted in the “financialization” of the US economy. As the financial sector has gotten larger and more powerful, its expectations and demands have changed the behavior of companies in all parts of the economy. That means more companies have made outperforming the market — and delivering the best short-term results — their highest priority. Businesses that want to improve their numbers to fulfill those demands have, at the highest level, two choices: They could create new customers, or they could squeeze more out of the ones they already have.
The first is usually difficult. It requires innovation, inspiration or both. The leaders who can consistently do so become legends — think Apple Inc cofounder Steve Jobs or Ford Motor Co founder Henry Ford.
The second is easier. A lot easier if you are willing to squeeze people who cannot push back, such as senior citizens. Might customers who feel cheated or abused abandon you eventually? Sure, but by the time that happens, you would have banked the necessary profit — and the fallout would be your successor’s problem. Aggregate that attitude across the entire economy and you get rising corporate profits, a booming stock market, low unemployment and a population that increasingly feels like corporate leaders and capitalism see it as prey.
Leaders who are shocked by Americans’ distrust (and the attendant rise of politicians preaching socialist politics) might be well-advised to look at many of their fellow CEOs for an explanation. If they want to restore faith in the system, they could start with their own actions. A few suggestions:
Stop saying that your only responsibility is to maximize shareholder value. As a matter of law, it is not true. And it serves as an excellent excuse for any kind of predatory behavior. Acknowledge that some regulation — even regulation that hurts short-term profits — is necessary and even beneficial in the long run.
Companies are measured against their competitors. If your rival is goosing its numbers through predation, it puts enormous pressure on you to do the same. Regulation could solve that problem for you, and business leaders should be unafraid to call for banning behavior that they know is morally unacceptable, however profitable it might seem.
Act as stewards, not predators. A predator feasts and leaves nothing behind. A steward’s chief responsibility is to leave things better than they found it. Being a corporate steward means building a company that would endure — and requires an honest relationship with customers.
Predators are feared and despised. Stewards are honored and loved. Which one would you rather be?
Gautam Mukunda writes about corporate management and innovation. He teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management and is the author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter.
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