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Question about price discovery and competition in american capitalism (feddit.dk)

submitted 4 days ago by Marand@feddit.dk to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've been listening to Aquired recently (podcast about company origin stories) and when talking about privately owned companies (for instance, the recently Mars Inc. episode) they always do back of napkin estimated earnings because the company is private, which apparantly means they don't have to disclose earnings.

But in my country, Denmark, every company earning above 50.000 DKK (=7853 USD) has to disclose earnings. I believe this is for price discovery purposes, so that other entrepreneurs can see how much margin companies have and try to compete if they earn too much money, which is an important part of capitalism, right?

How come this is not required in USA, the "home" of capitalism? If I'm not mistaken of course, my apologies if so.

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[–] pmtriste@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Publicly traded companies are legally bound to prioritize shareholder demands ahead of any other duties.

This is actually a myth. They are expected to be responsible with their money, but they are not in any way required to maximize profit from a legal perspective. They repeat the lie because it is a good excuse to be evil. If a company doesn't do what it's shareholders like, they may vote out the board, or they might sue if the prospective was fraudulent (said they were working on something that they weren't for example... But remember also that American companies don't make forward statements like European ones do, so those cases are going to be things like "last year we spent 10 million on R&D" when they actually spent the money on plane trips to cocaine parties) but those are the recourses available to shareholders.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wasn't that genuinely litigated in Dodge v. Ford? (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.) I've seen that decision cited countless times.

[–] pmtriste@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

It was argued, yes, but that is a state supreme court decision, not binding in any other state, and there is still no law that says this is true. Friedman wouldn't have bothered arguing about it in 1962 if it was unquestionably federal law or already settled by 1919. It is only convention.