On 30 Jan., 00:33, mdj  wrote:
> On Jan 29, 3:26 pm, calibra...{at}freenet.de wrote:
> >
> > The vast majority of people is corrupt and this won't ever change
> > as it is simply human - whether it's money or power they are after.
> > The only thing stopping most people is that they don't have the
> > opportunity to be corrupt - because they have nothing other parties
> > are interested in. Politicians have their vote.
>
> Circulus in probando (IOW, you are begging the question)
>
> The flaw in this argument is easy to see if we replace 'corrupt' with
> murderer/rapist/theif/bigot.

You are certainly right about the "vicious cycle" but you don't
really argue against people not being corrupt and why that's
the case ;-)

> Heck, not that long ago western societies viewed women as
> being a lesser form of life who's only purpose was to serve men.

In fact they still do - but to a lesser extent. Proof: Unequal wages.
Why have western countries become more "civilized" in this respect?
Because they need woman as workers! This can be very well seen
in Germany and other European countries where woman have to
earn their living and later have to cope with birth and the upbringing
of the child(ren). Companies sanction woman with lower wages
and worse job opportunities.

> Even slavery was justified with equally weak naturalistic and/or
> religious arguments.

Today we are more clever in this respect, also: We have so-called
temporary workers with extremely low wages or "minimum wages"
to just not let them starve...

A word to the "naturalistic argument": You seem to think of
civilization
being 'the right thing' and people acting against it as individuals.
IMHO civilization is completely artificial and it doesn't really work
very
well. The sheer number of crimes and wars shows that every day.
Of course it has improved somewhat: A 15th century lord would call
himself quite civilized but today he looks like a barbarian.

So everything is relative, anyway.

> On the other hand, it is said that a Corporation can be defined as an
> entity with no body to imprison, and no soul to feel guilt. Our
> society has not yet reached the point where we adequately punish
> corporate misdemeanours, let alone felonies.

Guilt, like moral, is an artificial construction, made by people to
control people (to "herd" them) and of course you could punish
corporations as laws exist for pretty much every crime possible.

The question remains why this isn't done more often. I can
imagine various reasons: cases are too complicated, too costly
or companies simply evade because they threaten to lay lots
of people off.

bye
Marcus
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