Rant on stakeholder capitalism (Copy)

Trust thought for today - are we letting semantics get in the way of action?

I'm getting bored of all this endless semantic discussion about stakeholder capitalism. I am wondering if it is in part a displacement activity and a distraction tactic.

Stimulated by another irritating letter in today's FT about the attached article, the time I was going to do my TTFT I wrote a letter to the FT about it instead. Here it is below. Unlikely to get published, but fingers crossed!
(It was published the following Tuesday)

Financial Times - Letter to the editor:

You can call it stakeholder capitalism, neoliberal capitalism, capitalism or whatever you like, (Letter Shareholder Capitalism is opposite of competitive March 2) but there is a problem with the way many companies are designed which is wrong irrespective of what the system is called - a focus on predatory business models which knowingly put profit before people.

Some new terms help illuminate this issue - the Attention Economy, the Surveillance Economy, the Gig Economy, the Addiction Economy. Perhaps we should stop dancing on the head of this particular semantic pin and focus instead on stopping the damage to society wrought by business models deliberately designed to damage individual physical or mental health and erode collective rights and freedoms?

To use another new buzzword, businesses which are ‘Net Positive’ - financially, socially and environmentally seem likely to be worth investing money in, whatever name for the commercial system people come up with next.

Hilary Sutcliffe
Director
SocietyInside

What do you think Dr Raj Thamotheram, Darrin Charlesworth, Jane Fiona Cumming?