[foxhill]

i'm sorry but this is utterly ridiculous.

IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..). it is a paper-clip maximiser, only instead of paperclips, it's cash.

it does not have morals, it does not have a conscience, irrelevant of the fact that the people that make it up do. to blame a company for doing exactly what it was made to do is madness.

if IBM didn't do it, another company would have done it. IBM could have failed, in fact, as a result. or at least, they might not be in the position they are now.

you may be tempted to argue that, morally, IBM should have not agreed to take part, regardless of the effect on the company. you wouldn't be entirely wrong. but a company does not have morals. not having morals is what allows them to make such vast amounts of profits.

when health insurance companies fight to the death (sometimes literally) to avoid paying out claims, where is this moral outrage? or when BP do literally whatever they want to environment, where does the outrage dissipate to after the media gets bored of talking about it?

we can not expect companies to be moral agents. we can not expect them to value human life over cash. to punish an entity with no conscience makes no sense. it would be akin to shouting at the wind for blowing, or kicking a hatstand for falling over.

the best we can hope to do is stop companies from engaging in "immoral" behaviour (whatever that means - they change over time) whilst they are committing it.

otherwise, lets start legal action with hugo boss for constructing nazi uniforms. or VW (literally, the "peoples car") for working with nazi germany.

[sroerick]

This is the most absurd, depressing thing that I've read in a while.

The point of a corporation is not to have a legal person without morals.

The point of a corporation is to allocate resources more efficiently than could be done by legal individuals.

We can expect corporations not to facilitate mass murder. We should expect corporations not to facilitate mass murder.

The argument that we should not punish transgressions just because some corporations are not punished for transgressions is cowardice in the highest degree.

Take back your agency and your humanity and stand for something.

[foxhill]

i don't like it. in fact i think it's the most abhorrent practise we do as humans.

> The point of a corporation is to allocate resources more efficiently than could be done by legal individuals.

noise. tell me - which is more "efficient" (i.e profitable), avoiding paying out insurance claims over insignificant inaccuracies, or caring about the family of 5 with a household income of $30,000, who's dad broke his arm whilst cycling to work, by a driver who was on their phone and caused them to run a red light?

> We can expect corporations not to facilitate mass murder.

oh, so we should abolish arms manufacturers?

> We should expect corporations not to facilitate mass murder.

you should tell this to BAE, or Lockheed Martin, or.. well, literally anyone on this list; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defense_contractors

> The argument that we should not punish transgressions just because some corporations are not punished for transgressions is cowardice in the highest degree.

absolutely not. there is no cowardice in that statement at all. it's a recognition of what companies in this world behave like. look at the actions of pretty much every big company. ask yourself - is your world view more accurate, or is mine?

again, i don't like it. it's sickening. but to hate these creations for doing exactly what they are made to do (again, make cash) is just.. senseless.

[sroerick]

I'm telling you the economic justification for a corporation. I don't like it either, but denying economies of scale as a reality of our world is silly.

I would be fine with abolishing arms manufacturers. Have you stopped using Google yet? Because they are the Lockheed Martin of the 21st century.

I agree with you that corporations are psychopathic. But to suggest that fact abdicates us from all responsibility of trying to return agency to the individual is foolish.

We have the power to say no. We have the ability to reshape the world whatever way we want it. Recognizing the evil that is conducted isn't cowardly. But refusing to do anything because "That's just the way things are" is.

EDIT: a don't

[foxhill]

> I would be fine with abolishing arms manufacturers.

why though? it's people that fire the guns. there will always be someone out there with a sharper stick. i mean this is literally where the term "arms race" comes from..!

> Have you stopped using Google yet? Because they are the Lockheed Martin of the 21st century.

do google do bad things? yes. but comparing them to Lockheed Martin? either you vastly underestimate the terrible things that company has done, or you really dislike google..! (or i'm woefully ignorant of google's inhumane actions)

> I agree with you that corporations are psychopathic.

no, they are not psychopathic. psychopathy implies that idea of empathy existed to begin with.

> But to suggest that fact abdicates us from all responsibility of trying to return agency to the individual is foolish.

no, absolutely not. the problem is in the formulation of the system. there is an incentive to break the rules (more reward). because there is an incentive, some individuals will attempt to break the rules. and corporations almost always get away with it.

replace corporations with gangs, and you have the problem with the war on drugs in a nutshell.

> We have the power to say no.

and yet, unfortunately, we exercise the power of apathy almost exclusively. all of our personal data on facebook is sold to advertisers, sold to whoever wants to buy it. we could just not use facebook.

> Recognizing the evil that is conducted isn't cowardly.

oh i whole heartedly recognise it.

> But refusing to do anything because "That's just the way things are" is.

that is entirely not what i'm saying. i'm saying we need to stop immoral behaviour when it is happening. we can't define morals in law, and the law is the only thing corporations understand. we can't change laws and retroactively apply them.

[knz42]

> i'm saying we need to stop immoral behaviour when it is happening. we can't define morals in law, and the law is the only thing corporations understand. we can't change laws and retroactively apply them.

Two things:

a) you can definitely capture part of your morals in law, like "don't kill". Our anti-genocide legal system is built for this purpose and applies to corporations as well as to individuals.

b) at the time of the Apartheid, unlike during WWII, crimes against humanity were already prosecutable "anywhere on earth". In other words we can definitely prosecute IBM now for a crime they committed under a law that was already active when the crime was committed, and which has no statute of limitation.

[foxhill]

> you can definitely capture part of your morals in law, like "don't kill"

ah! but you can't!

for instance, if someone was about to kill your partner - is it illegal to kill them before they succeed? yes. immoral..? grey.

the law is a rough cookie cutter shape that somewhat follows the edge of the fractal-like surface of morality. you can't capture morality in it's entirety into a legal document.

> at the time of the Apartheid, unlike during WWII, crimes against humanity were already prosecutable "anywhere on earth".

i don't know much about apartheid, but at the time, the SA gov't believed it to be legal (of course). the US didn't recognise it as wrong for a long time (late 80s?), and even then, that doesn't necessarily mean it was recognised as a crime against humanity. and it's hard to see from the article the dates of the specific actions that EFF are complaining about.

[sroerick]

Laws can only be applied retroactively. That's how laws work. That's why courts exist.

[schoen]

If you suppose that companies only ever respond to financial incentives, then you can imagine changing that behavior by creating a financial disincentive for it, such as legal liability and payment of money damages. The companies don't have to have a sense of morality for this theory to work.

[coffeemug]

> IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but it is not a person (although americans might try to disagree..)

Neither the American legal system, nor most Americans actually treat corporations as people or believe they should be treated like people. The fact that people regurgitate this falsehood is utterly ridiculous.

Our legal system uses a construct called legal fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction) as a convenient scaffold to extend existing laws to new domains (sort of like subclassing from a base class). In most of modern economies corporations have many, but not all, of the same properties as persons (they can own property, have to pay taxes, etc.) We use the legal fiction of corporate personhood as a structural aspect of the legal system to make this work.

Nobody actually believes corporations are people.

[TeMPOraL]

I hesitate to upvote you. I agree with like half of what you wrote, but the other half (especially conclusion) I find very wrong.

Corporations indeed work as you described, but strong enough back pressure on social and legal level changes the profitability landscape, and thus corporations will optimize in a way that is less harmful. You're right comparing them to artificial intelligences (i.e. very strong optimization processes) - they don't share humanity's goals, nor they should be expected to. But what we can do is force their goals to align with ours as much as possible.

[foxhill]

> But what we can do is force their goals to align with ours as much as possible.

how can we force an entity the size of large corporations to do what we want? we simply can't. look at the broadband problem in america. or bankers golden parachutes. or any of the immoral actions taken by corporations.

they are too large. once they get large enough, they have power over us, not the other way around.

[TeMPOraL]

We can by changing legal landscape. Actions of the EFF are part of this exact process.

Not saying it's easy or that we have much chances now. I'm pessimistic about that.

[foxhill]

we can only change the legal landscape for now. if we do punish IBM for their involvement in apartheid, what will it change for us now? we already recognise it was wrong. we can discourage others from doing similar actions now, but aside from that, i don't believe there is much else to be done.

[ahelwer]

Your comment is, frankly, ignorant and ignores the entire field of business ethics. You ought to read the SEP article[0].

[0] - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-business

[foxhill]

ignorant?

tell me, what do you disagree with? why do you disagree with it? what evidence do you have to back up your assertions?

if i am wrong correct me. but to brandish me as ignorant because you don't agree with what i say is just you, spreading dogma.

[mikegioia]

Here's one of your assertions I challenge:

    if IBM didn't do it, another company would have done it.

How do you know that? How can you prove that? Honestly, I wouldn't blame someone for stopping to read at that point.

Here's another thing you said:

    IBM is a company, an entity. it is made of people, but
    it is not a person [...] but a company does not have 
    morals.

If (a) IBM is a company made up of people, and (b) people have morality, on what basis are you claiming IBM doesn't (read: can't) have morals? A collection of people acting on behalf of a corporation does not absolve that corporation from any moral corruption it causes.

You speak about this as if you've never read any of the comprehensive literature on business ethics. I think you're being downvoted because you're coming off arrogant in a topic (business ethics) you don't project knowing much about.

[foxhill]

> How do you know that? How can you prove that?

come on, there's no need to be disingenuous - of course i cannot prove that.

> Honestly, I wouldn't blame someone for stopping to read at that point.

why? i don't believe that it's unreasonable to believe that another company would pick up a contract like that.

> If (a) IBM is a company made up of people, and (b) people have morality, on what basis are you claiming IBM doesn't (read: can't) have morals? A collection of people acting on behalf of a corporation does not absolve that corporation from any moral corruption it causes.

it's simple, being immoral allows more profits to be made. companies do this all the time. how many companies have token offices in remote islands? it's legal. if they don't do it, they're literally leaving money on the table. why would they not do it?

> You speak about this as if you've never read any of the comprehensive literature on business ethics.

you're correct, i haven't. i don't claim to know anything.

> I think you're being downvoted because you're coming off arrogant in a topic (business ethics) you don't project knowing much about.

most text does, i don't mean to come across as arrogant. but if people don't make an effort to correct me (and linking to an incredibly long article doesn't exactly help), how else might my opinion be changed? i don't feel that people owe me an explanation, but saying "you're wrong" and downvoting isn't.. well, it's not how i'd treat someone else, so i don't appreciate it when i am treated that way.

[ahelwer]

Your statements reflect fundamental flaws in your understanding of the subject matter. Expecting people to donate time to teach you the subject is pure entitlement. Read the SEP article. It's very easy to understand. Section 2.1 - the very first body section - is titled "Is the corporation a moral agent?" and should at least give you pause in publicly asserting they are not.

[foxhill]

> Your statements reflect fundamental flaws in your understanding of the subject matter.

my opinions are based on my observations. i observe companies being immoral all the time. there are a few notable exceptions - i think google are generally good, tesla, valve, recently (and only recently) microsoft, maybe some others.

bear in mind, throughout my replies, i've given various (uncited, but i believe easily verifiable) examples of why i believe what i believe.

> Expecting people to donate time to teach you the subject is pure entitlement.

no, i expect people who engage in HN comments to engage in discussion. i've expressed my opinion. if you disagree with it, i expect that you explain why, or to say nothing. dismissing me as ignorant because i don't have a background in business ethics is not an explanation.

> Read the SEP article. It's very easy to understand. Section 2.1 - the very first body section

your arrogance is becoming outrageous.

i did read section 2.1, here are some things it said-

> If the corporation is a legal person, is it also a moral person? Anglo-American law takes no explicit position on this...

ok, so no legal position on the "morality" of a company.

> ... Thus, for French, corporations are both legal and moral persons, and hence moral agents in their own right.

ok, French seems to think they are. on the other hand, Velasquez has a different opinion -

> Attributing moral agency to corporations opens the door to the intuitively implausible conclusion that a corporation can be morally responsible for something no natural person connected with it is responsible for.

so, really, you're asserting that corporations are moral, citing this article as proof, when in fact, (at least in the section you have directed me to) the law makes no statement, and there appears to be no general consensus on the matter.

> and should at least give you pause in publicly asserting they are not.

indeed.

[CamperBob2]

How do you know that? How can you prove that? Honestly, I wouldn't blame someone for stopping to read at that point.

Is there some reason you believe corporations, composed of human beings, are exempt from the human vulnerabilities documented by people like Zimbardo and Milgram?

That's the whole problem: if someone refuses to go along with your plan, all you have to do is ask somebody else. You will be (un)pleasantly surprised at just how few people, or by extension corporations, you have to approach with your proposal. There's nothing to "prove."

[Karunamon]

While I'm not sure I agree with your overall thesis (a company is made up of people at the end of the day), I do feel there is a point to be made here: Is the IBM of today the IBM of 20-40 years ago? A person is not controlled by different beings at different times of their life, a corporation is.

The legal brief, from a quick skim, appear to reference actions taken in the 70's and 80's.

Is the IBM of today the same one that existed in the 70's? The same people running it and making the same decisions?

If the answer is no, I'm not sure what significance this lawsuit holds, other than a symbolic "sticking it to the corporations" one. The only people being punished in such a case are those that had nothing to do with the original wrongdoing.

[SixSigma]

It still has the assets gained and the shareholders bear the risk of the business.

You'll be telling me next countries should stop paying war reparations because none of the combatants are still alive!

[URSpider94]

So, by your logic, if evidence surfaces after 30 years that solves an open murder case, we shouldn't prosecute the suspect, because they've changed a lot in that time?

[sroerick]

Or perhaps "All their cells have recycled over the last 7 years, so we can't prosecute."

[Karunamon]

Same person, though. Without going all philosophical about it though, here's an example: let's assume there are two companies, one a sole proprietorship, the other a corporation with 10 employees.

Both companies commit the same crime, the nature of which is unimportant.

It takes 30+ years for the case to enter the judicial system. In the meantime, the guy running the first company is still there, while the 10 employees of the second company are no longer the original 10.

Is it as fair to prosecute the second one as the first one? I don't think so, because at that point you're assigning way too much value to the legal fiction of personhood. A company is made up of people, and I really don't see how there is any justice to be served in prosecuting people who didn't actually commit any crimes just because they work at a place with a certain name.

[dalke]

Corporations exist to move liability from the owners to the company, not as a way to escape liability, which seems to be your proposal. Your argument seems to be that so long as people pass through a company quickly enough, there's no long-term liability for the company?

The company must maintain the liabilities of its history. If a refining company dumped waste directly into the ground, then 30+ years later it should still be held responsible for clean up, even if all of the people involved have retired. Otherwise, who is responsible for the cleanup?

Or, suppose that we find that Disney had illegally acquired the copyrights and trademarks to Mickey Mouse from Person X. All of the people involved are long dead, though the inheritors of the estate of Person X were successful in their lawsuit. Under your view, it seems that the inheritors could not sue Disney because none of the people now at Disney committed the original crime. That's an absurd conclusion.

[megablast]

There are a number of reasons for prosecuting, from punishing wrong doing to discourage overs, to getting compensation, to punishing the people who have done wrong.

You seem to think only one of these exists.

[URSpider94]

When you prosecute a company, you're penalizing the owners, not the employees. If there's a judgment against IBM, it's likely that nobody who works there will lose their job. Certainly, nobody will go to jail. Instead, the company will make less money, which may push the stock price down.

Most significantly, going forward, corporations will weigh the potential costs of litigation against the profit of doing business with regimes committing crimes against humanity. Which is what we want.

[foxhill]

a person is a single conscious entity. there is no change in 30 years.

a company will have almost entirely changed in 30 years - the son should not have to pay for the sins of the father, etc.

[rodgerd]

Then they shouldn't retain the patents, copyrights, cash, or any of the other assets. If corporations want the benefits of immortality, they need to accept the drawbacks.

[URSpider94]

Nonsense.

If the company signed a 100-year lease 30 years ago, should it no longer have to honor it?

If the company agreed to pay pensions to its employees 30 years ago, should it get to stop paying them?

If the CEO of Chrysler retires, can I stop paying the loan on my car?

The point of a corporation is that it's a durable entity (NOT a person, but a person is a good analogy much of the time). That's why corporations can own property, be insured, get loans from the bank, and otherwise enter into contracts -- because there will be an entity there tomorrow that will be accountable for those transactions -- regardless of who owns its shares or who is on the payroll.