censorship

Rational egoism is the idea that the only rational choices people can make are those that maximize their own benefit. In this week’s series, we explored how this applies to individuals, but a further question remains as to how groups can make rational choices. The issue becomes especially poignant when we consider groups we treat as individuals, such as corporations. To illustrate, let’s take a look at a recent development amongst American companies in Russia.

Alexey Navalmy was the only legitimate threat to president Vladmir Putin in the upcoming elections, but that all changed when he was accused of corruption by the Russian government—a move he claims was politically motivated. However, Nvalmy continues to attempt to depose the current powers in Russia, most recently through a video accusing deputy prime minister Sergei Prikhodko of accepting bribery. To do so, he used media showing the deputy prime minister on a businessman’s private yacht. The Russian government ordered him to take the media down and he refused to comply. They then told Instagram and YouTube to take down the offending material and hinted they might block access to the country in case they were disobeyed. Clearly, both companies would stand to lose a great deal of advertisement money if they were blocked from a country as big as Russia. Facebook, who owns Instagram, complied while Google, who owns YouTube, has not (at least at the time of this writing).

Who is making the right choice? If we want to say an American corporation should have no concern about how a foreign government rules itself, then we should also agree it is okay for American companies to sell the material used in NBC weapons to dictators that employ them on their own people. If, on the other hand, we want to say American corporations should get fully involved in how a foreign government rules its own nation, we will be resurrecting imperialism. Probably the truth lies somewhere in between. In this case, however, Instagram and YouTube have a much greater responsibility, because they are providing the platforms of speech. If people are able to access the state’s information but not the dissenting side’s information, then these corporations are providing the means to squash free speech. So, assuming Putin’s regime is fixing the future election, covering up corruption, and blocking free speech, Instagram is at least facilitating crimes. If YouTube gets blocked, they will not be facilitating these crimes, but will be losing a lot of money for themselves and shareholders. The question is whether Instagram is right for worrying about losing money or YouTube is right for worrying about being complicit in the corruption of a foreign government.

Interestingly, this debate shares similarities to our topic for the week. In laissez faire capitalism, it is thought that the goal of corporations is to maximize profit. An obvious objection is that this means corporations should act in morally reprehensible ways, but these philosophers of economy respond that such behavior would be far more likely to result in loss of profit due to competition (e.g., if they cut corners, people will buy from competitor corporations). If corporations are acting rationally and if there is sufficient competition, then they must act in a way that is commensurate with what we typically take to be moral. It is assumed that corporations will act rationally, so the only thing we must concern ourselves with is the sufficiency of competition, something laissez faire economists believe should be ensured by the government. Of course, this is a problem when the corporation is operating outside of the government’s jurisdiction, is operating under a corrupt government, or the nature of the product is such that there can be little competition. All of these are issues in the current case. Instagram is operating outside of the US, it is operating in a notoriously corrupt country, and is a platform not easy to leave because the connections people make on it aren’t transferable (notice that YouTube might hold the first two criteria in common with Instagram, but it is much easier to imagine transferring my material to Vimeo).

It may seem like laissez faire capitalism is just rational egoism applied to corporations instead of individuals, but there is a premise here that is not present in rational egoism. Both views hold that the only rational option is to benefit the chooser, but laissez faire capitalism makes the further claim that the benefit is profit, whereas rational egoism leaves the nature of the benefit open. Because of this, a rational egoist could argue that the right choice is whatever contributes to the common good because it benefits the user more to live in a world where everyone is happy than in one where she hoards all goods. A drawback to this view is that it no longer becomes clear what choice should be made. The laissez faire capitalist has a clear aim: get that money. A rational egoist aiming at the ‘common good’ isn’t totally sure what that means or how to get there. However, he will be much more likely to act in a way we find acceptable than the laissez faire capitalist.

I don’t claim to know what YouTube or Instagram should do. Maybe their goal should be profit—though I find this repugnant—in which case Instagram is right. Maybe their goal should be to most benefit their corporations, in which case it’s hard to see what other benefit there could be for such an entity than profit. However, if their goal should be to most benefit their members, then it is very plausible that YouTube is right. What do you think?