Maximizing Profits vs Welfare of Nation

The statement, "the desire of corporations to maximize profits creates conflict with the general welfare of the nation at large", correctly illustrates the state of most of the countries today, where the government is not vigilantly monitoring the practices followed by the organisations.

We can take the example of XYZ steel company, which has established its forging plant barely 2 miles away from the city. The location choosen by XYZ steel serves the company dual advantage, first, the labor is readily available from the city and second they have escaped providing infrastructure to their employees, since that was already in place. The downside for the community though is high level of air and water pollution caused by the wastes of the XYZ forging plant. This very well illustrates how the national intrests can be comprised by a large corporation in view of increasing the profits.

Further we can take the example of ABC paper mills, which imports raw material from china since the similar qualiy raw material when procured from the local market costs more. This resulted in huge losses to local farmers who have invested both time and money in cultivating paper producing plants.

Since no effective laws are available to monitor the activities undertaken by the corporations in an attempt to maximize their profits, they are taking advantage of all possible loopholes in the system. To conclude, the corporations are attempting to maximize their profits while compromising on general welfare of the nation, but this can be controlled with the strict government policies and laws.