Re:Bill Gates answers questions about Java during a depositi...
by pyre on Monday October 27, 2014 @02:03PM
(#8517073)
The idea that "it's just business" so it's ok to do anything and everything that you can get away with (up to and including breaking the law) is a harmful idea. "Crushing" other businesses by participating fairly in the market is different than using under-handed tactics to win at all costs ("history is written by the victors," "might makes right" and all that).
A company is not a person, a person is not a company. Attacking one should not be considered the same as attacking another, our entire economic system is based around the abstraction of organization so as to shield people from legal liabilities incurred by simply pursuing trade. You can't have it both ways, to both enjoy the legal benefits of a corporate structure, and then to be able to claim public sympathy when you get beaten in the market.
Corporate personhood is a dangerous legal concept that Americans believe in for unfathomable reasons, and it causes all sorts of ethical problems, particularly legalization of political manipulations that are considered corruption in other parts of the world.