[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.