The following was removed from an old webpage related to 'purpose' but not immediately discarded. It is possible that this text should be reworked to address the issue that profit as a singular dominant metrics is no longer 'fit for purpose' and something better is needed.
Background
The conventional wisdom in some circles is that the purpose of business is to make profit, and if a business makes profit, then there will be an optimization of the economy and the maximum of benefit for society. This is the basic premise of the Adam Smith argument for a laissez faire market economy, and it has worked better for most of the last three hundred years than the alternatives.
The modern version of this argument is that business has to optimize its performance relative to the interest of the owners … the stockholders. Some executives have argued that to do anything else is a breach of trust and executives could be held accountable in law for their actions.
This idea has been challenged. Whether or not the law requires optimization of business for the benefit of stockholders, there are initiatives to make it clear that the 'purpose' of the business is to make a contribution to society using the resources of the business. One such initiative in the United States is the B Corp movement, which specifically has articles in the Bye Laws to ensure that social benefit is a legitimate goal of the business.
Whether or not there is a problem in law to do things that are valuable for society … for people and planet … the metrics of state, progress and performance may be structured so that it is possible to see what is going on and understand the implications.
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