An economist says Apple isn’t paying its fair share of taxes. There is many things about which to criticize Apple, but this isn’t one of them.

Davos lights insist that companies are responsible to and for their employees, their suppliers, and their communities. Indeed. And the way to execute that responsibility is to be responsible first to companies’ owners. That’s what helps companies thrive so they can have, and have more, employees and suppliers—which money rotation funds those local communities.

What is Apple’s “fair share?” This economist declined to say—just that it ought to pay more.

The economist insists, instead,

the first step to being a good corporate citizen is to pay tax….

But how much? There’s that carefully undefined “fair share” bit, again. And: why should a business pay any tax at all? After all, the business might sign the tax payment check, but it’s the business’ customers who pay the tax, in the form of higher prices to cover the tax cost. Again, this is carefully unaddressed.

Instead, the economist and the lights of Davos insist that it’s somehow wrong for businesses to minimizes its costs and that it’s somehow wrong for nations to compete on tax rates in order to draw business investment so their citizens can have jobs and prosper.

This is Big Government ideology.

In a free market environment, though, nations do compete on tax rates for the benefit of their citizens. Businesses do work hard to minimize all costs so as to compete effectively on pricing, which directly benefits their customers and which indirectly benefits their communities from localities up through their nations.

In a free market environment, a good corporate citizen works to compete and so to thrive and so to take care of its employees, its suppliers, and its community.