It should be held accountable to behave like a good citizen within society like everyone else and not find ways to sidestep the law.
If society can oust an individual like Weinstein and hold them accountable for their actions why not a company? A company consists simply of a group of individuals making decisions with moral implications no different than an individual. Demoralizing companies is the most irrational proposal I've ever heard. Capitalism is not a computer program, it is a set of guiding principles meant to operate within a society of well intentioned and reasonable individuals that are held accountable for their actions.
This is why we have laws. Expecting people to be 'nice' is naive. They must be coerced.
If you choose not to buy apple products as a result of their behavior, fine. If you want to convince your friends to do the same, fine. But legal repercussions are reserved for law breaking entities. Loophole exploitation is not law breaking.
If a law is not broken, then any punishment would very likely be unfair as it would not be evenhanded in application.
I feel American political problems are rooted in having a professional political class, and a system in which politicians can enrich themselves by legislating.
If I were king, I would enact short term limits and regulation preventing any politician from increasing their networth while in office and for a period thereafter. Not applicable to myself of course.
As an aside... I can't see this ever working, it wouldn't prevent monetary bribery, it would just arbitrarily defer it. I suppose it would at least make it less attractive, but that is subjective.
Corporations are run by humans, some of those humans must ultimately answer for crimes of tax evasion. Just like the VW executive who is currently doing prison time for other corporate crimes (technically their vehicles passed the required tests).
Some people would prefer more than this to prevent scapegoating. i.e corporate death penalty... liquidation selling off the assets to the competition, dividing the result between the parties (government, citizens etc) defrauded or harmed. Unfortunately this will never happen with this size of company due to the impact it would have on the economy. The best we can hope for is government intervention, i.e impede company freedoms in proportion to it's crimes, much like a criminal record hurts an individual's job prospects. This would also make strategically immoral profit less attractive (Think of the Fight Club car recall equation).
OK, then they don't get to participate in politics by lobbying or making political donations of any kind, or buying political advertising.
> Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, and they can themselves be responsible for human rights violations.
How human do you want them to be? They're a group of humans with human rights.
No, sorry, I'm going to keep faulting them.
> Stop moralizing the behavior of companies. They aren't humans.
Repeal Citizen's United then.
Apple should be held accountable by whom? The government? The consumer? Apple did not break a law, so law enforcement cannot hold them accountable. The consumer can decide not to buy Apple products though, that is a reasonable response.
I thought the unstated assumption was that the law should be changed, which is certainly within both the letter and spirit of rule of law.
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I know where you are coming from but this level of extremely inclusive accountability would result in either: Everyone from the janitors to the legal team being held accountable for corporate tax evasion or: a company wide democracy on every decision that could potentially result in legally or morally grey outcomes.
IMO, in addition to individual accountability investigations, the company should be impeded somehow to make scapegoating a less attractive route (the hidden decision makers pushing other peoples buttons still get hurt by proxy).
Why are we not allowed to have a minimum level of moral expectations for people just because they paid a small fee and registered under an LLC?
That is true. Companies, however, consist of humans. Make the people making the decisions to be held responsible for those decisions.
Stop moralizing the behavior of companies. They aren't humans.
If you choose not to buy apple products in reaction to their behavior, great. If you want to convince your friends to do the same, great. But legal repercussions are reserved for law breaking entities. Loophole exploitation is not law breaking.