Can of worms?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Can of worms?

And maybe, just maybe, we believe that corporations that are bailed out with taxpayer funds have an extra responsibility to behave as responsible citizens, and not merely as amoral profit-generating automatons.

There are other considerations to contemplate as well that Friedman appears not to have taken into account. For example, in a society where economic activity is dominated by consumers, doesn’t it matter what consumers think? In other words, if enough people find Nike’s Asian labor practices or Citigroup’s foreclosure rate so objectionable that a meaningful number actually switch their business, isn’t it in the profitmaking interest of those corporations to change their behavior to match consumer expectations?

The time is ripe for a reevaluation of the role of the corporation in American society. The passion motivating Occupy Wall Street protesters tells us this, as does the spectacle of a political and economic system that is so clearly broken.

- Are U.S. corporations good citizens? November 22, 2011, Salon.com.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.