[epistasis]

I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil." Much of our society is multi-national corporations, so when we have a biased view of them we may end up cutting off our nose to spite our face.

And in popular culture, if we end up with people opposed to a carbon tax just because Exxon wants a carbon tax too, well it doesn't more nose-less than that.

[RobertoG]

"Much of our society is multi-national corporations"

I have problems with that statement.

In my opinion, if we start forgetting we are a society of humans that, sometimes, use corporations as a tool for collaborating, we have serious problems.

So, everybody, repeat with me: we want to maximize humans welfare. Corporations are tools.

[epistasis]

That's exactly what I meant by that statement, corporations are tools for our collaboration. They are a dominant form of our economic collaboration. Nearly all of us invest in them in our retirement savings. Many of us work for them. Everyone uses their services. So they have a big role in our society, and they are a tool that can be used in good and bad ways.

So in summary, I'm not sure what your problem was with that statement, other than perhaps my statement was too ambiguous :)

[RobertoG]

My problem was not with your comment specifically, but with a narrative trend I have observed where corporations, or also the economy, are the 'raison d'être' and we are the accessory.

It's something subtle in the public discourse (or not so subtle sometimes).

[stonogo]

> I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil."

Until the aims of multinational corporations are aligned with the aims of society at large, they will continue to be considered untrustworthy.

[nickff]

Society doesn't have aims, people do. Your unstated assumption that you views represent everyone else's is incorrect, and I am sure that my aims are very different from yours.

[stonogo]

That assumption was unstated because I wasn't making it.

[mason240]

In a capitalist society they are.

[4ad]

No, in a capitalist utopia they are.

I don't know if you consider the existing society capitalist or not, but I can't give serious consideration to the idea that corporations even vaguely represent the aims of society. Yes, you can claim that people have aims, not societies, but people constitute societies, and the aims of 99.9% of people are not aligned with the aims of the corporations.

[WalterBright]

Having corporations in a capitalist society clearly correlates with things like reduced infant mortality, better health, etc. They do this by creating value that people want to buy and providing jobs that people want to have. Sounds representative of the aims of society to me.

[kiliantics]

I think the intended point was that, in a capitalist society, the instutions of capital (i.e. multi-national corporations) do not act with the best interests of the average person, but rather the interests of the institutions themselves and their biggest benefactors: the executives and shareholders.