Thread

1. djoldman · 1790864377 · focus · HN ↗

   It often strikes me as quite the biased and one-sided take when a tax-paying entity is called out by the press for tax avoidance (NOT tax evasion, which is illegal). (yes TFA implies that Meta is breaking the law, I'm not talking about situations where entities break the law).

   Previously we've seen "The Secret IRS Files" from Propublica as well as other coverage of tax avoidance that never resulted in tax evasion charges. Coverage wide enough that it's arguably safe to assume that no laws were broken because there was quite the demand for an enforcement response.

   The funny thing is that a more accurate title for these pieces would be, "Federal Government Allows [tax-paying entity] a Massive Tax Break." And then the piece would be all about how the senate, congress, and president either explicitly wanted there to be this extreme tax loophole or was incompetent and allowed something they didn't mean to allow.

   Folks are continually getting upset and riled up about players in the economic system instead of who and what makes the rules.

   An analogous example: everyone got cranky about Martin Shkreli, mostly because he raised prices on Deraprim, although also because many would label him a brash jerk. But he went to jail for finance stuff, not raising prices. Why? Because raising prices in the way he did wasn't something the feds thought was illegal or wasn't something they thought he could be convicted of.

   Folks get mad at Musk, Zuckerberg, etc... if they're doing something illegal, ok yea that makes sense. If folks are mad about actions that are legal, it makes zero sense to be mad at the actor. Be mad at the people/entities who created the legal loopholes and laws.

   1. danbruc · 1790865207 · focus · HN ↗

      It is perfectly fine to be upset about certain lawful behaviors because lawful does not mean good. This does also not exclusively apply to companies, people can be law abiding assholes. And it works in the other direction, too, sometimes unlawful behavior is good behavior.

      1. jvanderbot · 1790865984 · focus · HN ↗

         But GP comment is not about how you feel about it. It is about where you direct that anger. If you dislike what a powerful entity does, well, we the people are supposed to have a recourse in our representatives. Why precisely is it that we feel like we do not?

         1. danbruc · 1790866807 · focus · HN ↗

            I expect everyone to behave nicely even in the absence of laws. The reason that I am not killing people left and right is not because it is illegal to so but because it is immoral. The law is a last resort to disincentivize certain behaviors or hold you responsible after the fact, it is not what should exclusively guide anyone's behavior.

            1. ryandrake · 1790870985 · focus · HN ↗

               But companies are not part of "everyone". Companies are amoral. They have no concept of morality, only legality. If doing X produces Y profit and is legal, they will do X. If doing X produces Y profit, but is illegal and the fine times the probability of getting caught is Z, then they will do X if Y > Z. Shame and morals have nothing to do with the equation.

               1. Gormo · 1790876785 · focus · HN ↗

                  There seems to be a very serious ontological muddle-up at the core of your argument.

                  On the one hand, you're referring to "companies" in a way that rejects them as concrete entities that possess moral agency: excluding them from "everyone", calling them "amoral" etc.

                  On the other hand, you're referring to them in a way that attributes purposeful, intentional action to them, in a way that requires them to be concrete entities possessing moral agency: you're describing them as entities that do things in pursuit of desired goals, respond to incentives, etc.

                  These are contradictory concepts, yet you seem to be using the first as the rationale to formulate opinions about the second! How do you reconcile this?

                  1. ryandrake · 1790877515 · focus · HN ↗

                     A thing can have limited agency and the ability to act, but still not consider morality as an input guiding those actions. An autonomous robot, or a wind-up toy, for examples.

                     1. Gormo · 1790880249 · focus · HN ↗

                        I'm not sure that I'd consider a robot (which I'm not sure can actually be autonomous) or a wind-up toy as actually possessing any form of agency, per se -- these are things under the control of some person or persons, who are responsible for its action, and whose intentions are the only ones applicable to its behavior.

                        In the case of a "company", I wouldn't even necessarily call it a thing per se, as much as I'd regard it as a kind of reificiation, a shorthand used to refer to a pattern of human activity as by a single name for the sake of convenience. It may be that the actual people involved, for whom the "company" is merely an organizational model they're using to coordinate their activities, often have motivations and intentions that they allow to supercede their moral consciences, but that's still on them.

                        Attributing either blame for malice or credit for productive results to the organizational model itself, as though it itself possessed agency, seems to be a very fundamental error.

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