Competition in economics is the incentive that has brought the majority of westerners from <$1/day to what we are today - with washing machines, cars, and water toilets no king could previously dream of.

Companies compete for shareholders by satisfying as many customers as possible. If states can compete for the best deal for international business, companies can better serve people, and those states can house centres of international trade.

It’s not just abstract talk, but incentives that drive us to live different everyday lives than people in guild-economy medieval times, or past slave economies, or how people lived in the GDR or other eastern bloc countries.

The corporation that uses the roads and operates under the safety of the police and military of a country should not be paying some other country, it barely has anything to do with, a lower tax due to some accounting shenanigans.

> serve people

You wanted to write “shareholders”, right?

It minimizes the amount of taxes paid overall, which weakens the state.

this is a benefit only international corporations get to enjoy, which gives them an unfair advantage in the market.

if your goal is to have a few conglomerates rule the world, then this is a good way to do it. Not sure how that is much different from a powerful "state" though

How is weakening the state a good thing?

State leaders have no incentive to create value, but rather to keep power.

Companies must create valuable things people want, or be out of business in a very short time.

State leaders have an incentive to get reelected. Companies are only beholden to their shareholders which represent a tiny fraction of the population.

Companies are also beholden to their customers. For all its faults, that does result in some good products.