>>Hi peter,

<snip>

>Your analysis is clear and sounds plausible. However, it also implies that companies are allowed to forget the morality they show in their homeland as soon as they have passed the border of another country. In the other country they are allowed to - or forced to - act according to the morality as set there. I can accept that if the morality has been set by the people, that is, if it is a democratic country. But how about dictatorial countries? Your opinion is that it will eventually take some generations, but that in the end even the people in those countries will benefit.

Well, as I said it is a difficult issue. Yes, this is my opinion. You also have to wonder how a democracy compares to dictatorship. How morally right is the democratic USA compared to the cuban dictatorship?


>But that's not the 'mission' why these companies move into those countries and there is also no guarantee at all that democracy will rise.

You're absolutely correct on this one. The intentions might be morally wrong while the effects on long terms might be positive.

>The current support by the west for China can also be explained as a legalization and justification of their type of communism, thus letting it endure for a long long time to come.

I don't know enough of china's form of communism, but when I see the economy grow by 10% each year, you'll have to conclude that its model is way better working than the types of communism we know from eastern europe. You should also not forget you cannot force democracy to people who do not have a clue of what it means. You can see it in the middle east, where democracies are not present either (maybe with the exception of egypt, and isreal).

The best IMO, the western world could do is support the development of a more stable government and economical welfare for its citizens. But you'll have to realize that you won't support it by ignoring those countries and insist to hammer about accepting democracy. As shown in iraq: You can't build democracies overnight, it has to evolve into one, as it happende with us and other countries in history just by evolution.

These are all issues each government tightening political relations with such countries has to think about and deal with. This is why it is so difficult to do. No matter what you do, you'll be burned for whatever decision you make. But you know, that the worse thing you can do is not making a decision at all.

>It's my opinion that a company too must have a moral of its own, and it should be exhibited anywhere in the world, not only in the homeland.

An idealogical stance which in reality might be far more difficult to do with pure morality.
Let me be clear. I'm not promoting anything here and I'll convict anyone selling mass destructive chemicals to dictatorship nations, but sometimes you'll have to take one step back and see what our urge to push for moral actually is causing (Argument about banning childs working in clothing industries).

Walter,