[sykhic]

It's increasingly hard to justify not doing business in China for moral reasons whilst doing business in the U.S. If the moral high ground could indisputably be claimed by the U.S. then peoples' views would be different. Now it's not a big deal that Google wants to do business in China since it's doing business in the U.S.

It's not necessarily that morality has gone down in the U.S; it's that trust in the morality of America's leaders has gone down. I see this as a sign of a decline in the faith of America's institutions. Also with globalization the distinction between nation-states begins to erode. This is especially so in the case of business.