It's easy to anthropomorphize corporations, and if I met someone who acted like a corporation ("life goal: maximize profits"), they sure would seem greedy! (That goes for *any* corp., not just the successful ones.)
The amoral nature of corporations comes largely from the fact that publicly-traded companies are owned by investors that are removed from the day-to-day tactics of the business; "the shareholders" want higher profits, and if management has to do something unethical to get there, well, the shareholders wanted it.
As a shareholder (there, I said it), I want the companies in which I'm invested to perform well (and pay me the money!). As a citizen, I want the companies in my economy to play fairly with their employees and with the environment.
This amorality is an interesting facet of the corporate world, and makes a good argument for not granting them the legal status of "persons", even though they're conglomerations of actual people. Also germane is the subject of government regulation to enforce ethics on these otherwise amoral creatures.
Amoral corporations interact suboptimally with the moral world, and people (moral creatures) wind up feeling the pain.
(re: @Peter)
First of all, I'm not sure what the "moral world" is. I certainly wish it were more moral, but I tend to think that people are often as guilty as companies about being amoral.
ReplyDeleteFor example, many of the Occupy Wall Street crowd think that because some people (the 1%) make more money than them, that something isn't right. It's not fair. The wealth should be distributed to the rest of the 99%. I'm in the 99% (obviously), but taking someone else's money who earned it sure seems like stealing to me.
I also tend to think that people generally feel more benefit than pain from large corporations. I don't feel like Home Depot, Intel, Disney, JP Morgan Chase, (or any other large company I can think of) has actually caused me any pain. Sure, I feel the affects of the economy being down, but there's no way I would blame the recession on large corporations.
In addition, I know many companies do a lot of good in communities, such as donating money, offering service projects, and providing employment.
Their number one goal is often to make money (as it should be), but I don't think that always causes pain to the general public.