maximizing shareholder value

The purpose of a corporation, as per Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and the cause of much suffering in the world. After all, if poisoning children is likely to raise sales of your product, and the possibility of a lawsuit or criminal charges is minimal, you fail in your responsibility to the shareholders if you do not go ahead and poison the children. You are literally not doing your job. This is a bad thing from your perspective because it can get you fired.

As long as the corporation is the primary economic unit of the economy at large, this will not change: corporate capitalism is a system designed to maximize economic production, not to do good. For a big company to have a conscience is a liability in the marketplace, and deriliction of duty will not be tolerated for the long-term.

As I have said in my writeup in capitalism will save the environment, the corporation is not at fault. The monetary system is.

Is there a more efficient system than capitalism to extract productive value out of limited resources? I think not. A free market economy will always perform better than centralised control.

Think laterally. Don't blame the corporation that has to work within the confines of the current monetary system. Can the very nature of money itself be changed?