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An American for profit corporation is by law required to make money for it's investors. It has no obligation to be a human rights watch group.

The Chinese people are responsible for their government. Not Google.



This is a valid legal point, but not a valid moral one.

In a normal society, we recognize that being "legal" and being "moral" are different things, and that you cannot and generally shouldn't try to legislate for morality.

We expect individual citizens to behave both legally and morally. This means we sometimes expect citizens to do something that isn't strictly required by law (e.g. assisting someone who has been in a car accident rather than just driving by).

In law though, corporations are also "citizens" - but they have an additional obligation to act solely in the best interests of their shareholders (the shareholders can sue the directors for not doing this).

So we're left with a society in which all corporations not only are, but are legally required to be sociopaths.

There's a docufilm called "The Corporation" that makes this point fairly well.




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