[Mb-civic] Business, and Repression,
as Usual - Richard Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Thu Jan 19 10:33:42 PST 2006
Business, and Repression, as Usual
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, January 19, 2006; A19
The charm of businessmen in general is not only that they lack irony
but, because they took business courses in college, they lack basic
knowledge. That explains why they unknowingly suggest Anatole France,
who in 1894 wrote, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich
as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and
to steal bread." In somewhat less literary language, Microsoft has just
said the same thing.
The speaker of this unintended echo was Brooke Richardson, a group
product manager (whatever that is) for Microsoft. She was responding to
inquiries about the company's decision to help shut down a Beijing
blogger at the request of the Chinese government. "Microsoft does
business in many countries around the world," Richardson explained.
"While different countries have different standards, Microsoft and other
multinational companies have to ensure that our products and services
comply with local laws, norms and industry practices." In other words,
Microsoft follows the law in America and it follows the law in China --
never mind that there really is no law in China.
Yahoo is similarly evenhanded. When the Chinese government asked the
company who among its many users was sending out certain embarrassing
e-mails, Yahoo provided the name -- Shi Tao -- and he is now serving a
10-year prison term at what amounts to hard labor. He works at a prison
jewelry factory, cutting and polishing stones, and reportedly suffering
from the dust produced. According to the organization Reporters Without
Borders, "at least 32 journalists and 62 cyber-dissidents are currently
in prison in China."
Yahoo, of course, explains its actions the same way Microsoft does --
or, I suppose, as does Cisco Systems, which produces the equipment with
which the Chinese censor the Internet: just following local custom.
Maybe they have something of an argument, since American tech companies
have supposedly cooperated with the National Security Agency in the
effort to listen in on international phone calls -- a program disdaining
court-issued warrants or congressional authorization. Still, there
remains a vast difference between American-style illegality (if it
amounts to that) and its Chinese equivalent. The law in China is what
the Chinese leaders say it is. Currently it is illegal to post
information on the Internet that "creates social uncertainty." Try
defining that.
The Internet may be new, but not the issue of whether an American
corporation should do business with bad people. Many an American fortune
was based on the slave trade or exploitation of the Indians or some such
atrocity. According to allegations in a recent book, IBM did business
with Nazi Germany and, more recently, a good number of U.S. corporations
helped the old apartheid regime in South Africa with its security
concerns. Capitalism has always been amoral, eschewing moral
considerations for the only one that counts: Will the check clear?
Still, the panting willingness of American firms to do business in China
has produced a bumper crop of hypocritical justifications. The first
one, as noted, is that silly stuff about adhering to local laws
everywhere in the world. The second is the contention -- the slim hope,
actually -- that by helping China with its Internet or whatever, we
wonderful Americans are also encouraging the growth of a middle class
and a concomitant interest in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. In the
meantime, the use of such terms as "human rights" or "Dalai Lama" in the
title of a blog entry is not possible with the MSN blog tool. In China,
a typo can cost you plenty.
Clearly, if the Chinese market were tiny, America's high-tech companies
might not be willing to snitch on their customers and help send them to
jail. But the market is vast -- an astounding 1.3 billion people, 103
million of them already on the Internet. (The United States, with 203
million users, is about maxed out.) Hard to turn down, it seems. Much
better to cooperate in censorship and, if need be, the occasional
jailing of some dissident. Business is business, after all.
But just as public pressure was brought on American companies that
helped South Africa subjugate its own people, so should pressure be
brought on the current crop of moral dunces. This is particularly the
case with companies such as Yahoo, which fingers users so that they can
be arrested. Corporations are legal fictions, an abstraction that lacks
a conscience. The men who run them, though, are flesh and blood -- like
Terry S. Semel, Yahoo's chief executive. This week he reported healthy
gains. Alas, he did not report the loss of a single night's sleep.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801875.html
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