They're accountable as individuals not as a collective. And it so happens, they are responsible for their government in a democracy but corporations aren't responsible for running countries.
> It’s perfectly valid to criticize corporations for their actions, regardless of the regulatory environment.
In the free speech sense, sure. But your criticism isn't founded on solid ground. You should expect corporations to do whatever they have to do within the bounds of the law to turn a profit. Their responsibility is to their investors and employees, they have no responsibility to the general public beyond that which is laid out in the law.
The increasing demand in corporations being part of the public/social moral consciousness is causing them to manipulate politics more and more, eroding what little voice the individuals have.
You're trying to live in a feudal society when you treat corporations like this.
If you're unhappy with the quality of Google's services, don't do business with them. If they broke the law, they should pay for it. But expecting them to be a beacon of morality is accepting that they have a role in society and government beyond mere revenue generating machines. And if you expect them to have that role, then you're also giving them the right to enforce that expectation as a matter of corporate policy instead of law. Corporate policies then become as powerful as law, and corporations have to interfere with matters of government policy on the basis of morality instead of business, so you now have an organization with lots of money and resources competing with individual voters.
And then people have the nerve to complain about PACs, money in politics, billionaire's influencing the government, bribery,etc.. you can't have it both ways. Either we have a country run partly by corporations, and a society driven and controlled by them, or we don't.
When we criticize corporations, we really are criticizing the people who make the decisions in the corporations. I don’t see why we shouldn’t apply exactly the same moral standards to people’s decision in the context of a corporation as we do to people’s decisions made in any other context. You talk about lawfulness, but we wouldn’t talk about morals if we meant lawfulness. It’s also lawful to vote for the hyper-capitalist party, so by the same token moral outrage shouldn’t be directed towards the voters.
I get that, but those CEOs are not elected officials, they don't represent us and have no part in the discourse of law making (despite the state of things). In their capacity has executives of a company, they have no rights, no say in what we find acceptable or not in society. We tell them what they can and cannot do or else. That's the social contract we have with companies and their executives.
Being in charge of a corporation shouldn't elevate someone to a platform where they have a louder voice than the common man. They can vote just as equally as others at the voting booth. they can participate in their capacity as individuals in politics. But neither money, nor corporate influence have places in the governance of a democratic society.
I talk about lawfulness because that is the only rule of law a corporation can and should be expected to follow. Morals are for individuals. Corporations have no morals. they are neither moral or immoral. Their owners have morals, and you can criticize their greed, but that is a construct of capitalism. They're supposed to enrich themselves. You can criticize them for valuing money over morals, but that's like criticizing the ocean for being wet or the sun for being too hot. It's what they do. It's their role in society.
If a small business owner raises prices to increase revenue, that isn't immoral right? even though poor people that frequent them will be disaffected? amp that up to the scale of a megacorp, and the morality is still the same.
Corporations are entities that exist for the sole purpose of generating revenue for their owners. So when you criticize Google, you're criticizing a logical organization designed to do the thing you're criticizing it of doing. The CEO of google is acting in his official capacity, doing the job they were hired to do when they are resisting adblocking. The investors of Google are risking their money in anticipation of ROI, so their expectation from Google is valid as well.
When you find something to be immoral, the only meaningful avenue of expressing that with corporations is the law. You're criticizing google as if it was an elected official we could vote in/out of office. or as if it is an entity that can be convinced of its moral failings.
When we don't speak up and user our voice, we lose it.
They're accountable as individuals not as a collective. And it so happens, they are responsible for their government in a democracy but corporations aren't responsible for running countries.
> It’s perfectly valid to criticize corporations for their actions, regardless of the regulatory environment.
In the free speech sense, sure. But your criticism isn't founded on solid ground. You should expect corporations to do whatever they have to do within the bounds of the law to turn a profit. Their responsibility is to their investors and employees, they have no responsibility to the general public beyond that which is laid out in the law.
The increasing demand in corporations being part of the public/social moral consciousness is causing them to manipulate politics more and more, eroding what little voice the individuals have.
You're trying to live in a feudal society when you treat corporations like this.
If you're unhappy with the quality of Google's services, don't do business with them. If they broke the law, they should pay for it. But expecting them to be a beacon of morality is accepting that they have a role in society and government beyond mere revenue generating machines. And if you expect them to have that role, then you're also giving them the right to enforce that expectation as a matter of corporate policy instead of law. Corporate policies then become as powerful as law, and corporations have to interfere with matters of government policy on the basis of morality instead of business, so you now have an organization with lots of money and resources competing with individual voters.
And then people have the nerve to complain about PACs, money in politics, billionaire's influencing the government, bribery,etc.. you can't have it both ways. Either we have a country run partly by corporations, and a society driven and controlled by them, or we don't.