Saturday, January 17, 2009

Not so evil?

I thought this observation by Nate Silver was particularly wise:
There is a certain "progressive" paradigm in which corporations are inherently evil, and anything that benefits corporations in any way is evil. I've never particularly understood this, because I assume that moral agency rests within individuals, and corporations are not individuals, even if we tend to anthropomorphise them. Perhaps an individual that runs a corporation can be evil, but the corporation itself is not evil. Perhaps an individual that runs a corporation can be greedy, but the corporation itself is not greedy. By the same token, whether a particular policy benefits a corporation or not is immaterial, and matters only insofar as that benefit is passed on (or not) to particular individuals.