4 ms·
Your definition of illegal behaviour seems to rest on a very narrow view that unless behaviour is prosecuted then it is not illegal. By this view, corporations
by mrow84 12y ago
Your definition of illegal behaviour seems to rest on a very narrow view that unless behaviour is prosecuted then it is not illegal. By this view, corporations are not above the law because when any illegal behaviour is discovered they are duly prosecuted, when laws are available, and if laws are not available then it was not illegal behaviour in the first place. However, Omniusaspirer's contention was that corporations are "effectively above the law", not that they were literally above the law.
The exemplary area in which corporations are effectively above the law is tax arrangements, where multi-national corporations can take advantage of their multi-national status to pay lower amounts of corporation tax than companies in all the national jurisdictions in which they operate.
The corporations are effectively above the law because they are legally paying lower taxes than those other companies. That is, they get preferential treatment by satisfying the letter of the law, but not the intent, that being evidenced by current international efforts to close these loopholes. Such issues can only be addressed by multi-national or even global agreements, as Omniusaspirer said.
- davidw 12y agoSo your definition is "corporations are effectively above the law if they do things I think are bad" ?
- mrow84 12y agoNo, my definition would be that multi-national corporations are effectively above the law if, in a particular jurisdiction, they can engage in behaviour that companies constrained solely to that jurisdiction cannot engage in. I am glad that we have cleared up the difference between being literally and effectively above the law, but I doubt we'll make any progress towards agreement about what being effectively above the law might mean. As we have already circumvented the HN efforts to avoid debates that aren't going anywhere several times, I guess I'll leave it at that. Have a nice day! edit: Just to be clear, my above definition would also extend to arbitrary numbers of joint jurisdictions. So if corporation X, doing business in jurisdictions A, B, and C, can engage in behaviours within jurisdiction A that are unavailable to corporation Y, which only does business in jurisdictions A and B, then X would be effectively above the law with respect to Y. This definition seems very natural and clear to me: one group is allowed to do things another group isn't by some special status, ergo, they are effectively above the law.