That's fairly simple. Companies are in business to maximize profit. That's their goal, and that's supposed to be their goal. Now, you can decry Bermuda's corporate tax laws that create such a path to maximized profits, but you're completely missing the point if you're blaming Google.
No, I'm not, not at least from my point of view : My point was that a company couldd imagine its goal to actually give something back to the society that it has benefitted from. All of this Open source stuff they used, for example.
And please don't tell me that this is completely alien - there DO exist a few bosses of privately owned companies/firms who believe so ! They're not many, though, because "giving back" is something that is not so common - and usually exclusively applied to shareholders etc. .
Even Bill Gates is "giving back" at least something - through his charities.
And why shouldn't people give somwething back to society ? Altruism is very human - like greed, hate and love are as well.
Let's take for example transportation companies. They use the streets, the streets get worn out - so why sjhouldn't they give something back to the society - in its incarnation of a "state" - that is actually responsible for maintaining the streets the transportation company uses ? In "state philosophy", a common thought is that the society is constituted as a "state" - so, that practically ALL "government" is basically US.
WE are "the state" in fact ! This is the simplest way of basic democracy !
And if we take this serious, then we must be allowed to give society - in the form of "the state" something bacjk.
But - we must also be allowed to control that beast which is called "the state", because it is basically us !
Which means that any government organization or ministry must be transparent like a window towards its cizizens - because "state philosophy" states that all state-based organizations, ministries and whatnot IS actually US.
In an ideal world, people wopuld acknowledge that it is basically THEM who are responsible for maintaining the streets, for example. It's just o that they've elected - around a few corners - a team of workers who is responsible for maintaining the streets.
The way we think nowadays is just a case of ... what's the word ... losing contact to what we have constituted, what we have elected. It has become something abstract, something far, far away from our minds (so to say), instead of living in a small village out there in the wilderness (or the frontier), where people are actually responsible for maintaining let's say the village's well. Or prison. Or bureaucracy.
"The bureaucracy" in a small town with let's say 100 people actually consists of two neighbours doing the paperwork for you ! And you might - on the other hand - be responsible for keeping the villages' well clean !
In a huge town, people loose sight. It's no more the direct neighbour doing "the bureaucratic paperwork" we all hate - it's (in our minds) some unknown guy or girl we have never seen or met !
This distance is what makes us think in words like "the state", "the gov't", "the workers", "the management" !
In my opinion - and I'm following a new fasion or trend here - things must go back to basic democracy. We must learn to know who is doing what again. "The government" must be "the people" again. I believe that it is healthy if things go back to the roots again - of course with some control functions so that things like with the Nazis cannot happen again.
And of course control functions that the Iron Law Of Oligarchy[/url ] cannot take place anymore.