- "to make as much money as they possibly could"
A company, or person can run a business for the short term, or for the long term or a combination of both, making decisions, guesses or bets on what the future might be, and what competitors might do.
Do you expand your business, at some risk, at the hope or guess that you will get more market share, make more money, or do you stay the course, keep small, keep your money for a rainy day, increase dividends to your shareholders, etc.
To claim that the duty of a business is to maximize profits is just wrong headed thinking. There are so many different ways that a business can unfold and so many decisions that can either make more money or bankrupt the company. Shareholders don't sue, they sell their shares, or vote out the current heads if they don't like what they are doing. You can only sue if some deliberate malfeasance has taken place.
Do the shareholders of Borders sue because the boom times didn't last as long as the people running Borders thought it would?
Microsoft spends billions each year on R&D, they are obviously in it for the long term. If as a shareholder you want Microsoft to stop spending money like this, to maximize profits for the here and now, do you sue? No, you sell your shares and buy some other stock in a company run more inline with your thoughts on how a business should be run.
Its just anti-capitalist rhetoric that a company must be run to maximize profits for its shareholders.
