The weird thing about being an American is the whole cult of extreme capitalism ends up revealing how much most companies hate their workers. It's the only explanation for why they'll sacrifice productivity–and their bottom line, profit–to be punitive.
— Jessica Price (@Delafina777) April 8, 2019
I’ve wondered about this often, too. Companies absolutely do not maximize profits. This is 100% false. Many if not most are more interested in punishing their workers for no substantive reason than they are in maximizing profits.
Why this is so pervasive, and why no company seems to be able to deviate from this impasse, I have no certainty about. It seems to me that something is either deficient in human nature itself (most likely) or that my model is wrong somewhere. However, having worked in quite a few corporations, it just appears that people and MBA types in particular are more interested in ensuring predictability and obeisance than profits. Why this is exactly, I don’t know.
I think a large part of it is that MBA types and the rich actually enjoy exerting adversarial control and practicing petty (and worse) forms of cruelty. It’s a hobby, it’s something worth foregoing some profit and some gains to enjoy this sport of the powerful.