I don’t really know about the whole Gabon thing, or about how Nestle was or wasn’t involved in killing babies. I do know, however, that I think they are evil just because of their racist and sexist tactics in their corporate offices. They have a building in Glendale, CA, on the same street as the office building where I used to work. Their tactics are (in)famous here, and quite sad. I talked with several people who had once worked there, and ended up leaving because it was almost blatant in their “good ole boys” system.
Two thoughts:
- Why should the rules of morality completely change with the legal act of incorporation? If a corporation does something profitable but sleazy that we would excoriate any of our friends for, if they did it just to make a buck, why should the corporation get a moral free pass - or even praise for maximizing their profit margins? I think that’s bullshit. Right and wrong don’t change when a business entity files incorporation papers.
Mind you, I’m not expecting corporations to recognize the need to act morally. I’m just saying the rest of us still by God do, and there’s no moral law saying we have a moral obligation to let them off the hook.
- Are there no circumstances in which sucessor governments of a particular patch of land are reasonably considered free of the obligations of their predecessors? I’m not arguing that that should be the case here, because I’m relatively ignorant about the succession of governments in Ethiopia. But I’m surprised that the opposite seems to simply be assumed here.
By analogy, suppose a business buys a piece of land, and operates a factory on it. They eventually go bankrupt, and another business buys the land. Then it’s found that the original business left the land saturated with toxic chemicals and heavy metals, which are leaching into the ground water. Who should be responsible for the costs of the cleanup?
I think you get the idea.
There’s more than just Russian background on this. Just this sort of argument was made by Alexander Hamilton regarding the bond debts the 13 seperate states had incurred during the revolution and under the Articles of Confederation. The bonds again became collectible trash but VERY important to the northeastern mercantile class when Hamilton started pulling for the federal government to honor them at face value.
And therein lies a tale…
So it’s not just ‘them’ but also ‘us’…for as long as we’ve been an ‘us’.
First of all, I want to say that this is why I love the board–when someone goes off a bit half-cocked, like I did, there are always people who are there to push at them a bit and get them to explain (like Lib and Taxguy did right from the start). Thanks, fellows.
For those of you who don’t know the whole Gabon (and Singapore, and Kenya, and Peru, and the Philippines…) brouhaha, here’s the deal. Baby formula is a good product under certain conditions. But in some parts of the world, it’s not. To be able to use formula successfully, the family must have access to a clean water supply (both for mixing the formula and for sterilizing nipples and bottles). They must also have the resources to continue to afford the product. And they must be literate to follow instructions and read warnings. You see, once a mother uses formula, her milk supply often dries up. There is no other way to feed the infant, except to use more formula. In other words, it’s pretty much irreversible.
This product was never meant to be used by the general public in third-world conditions. But some formula companies ignored that reality, and instead looked upon the populations of third-world countries as a chance to increase sales. They marketed and advertised heavily and employed uniformed “milk nurses” to go into hospitals and encourage new mothers to use formula.
Eventually health care workers in these countries managed to summon the interest of the U.S. Congress and WHO and UNICEF. In 1979 WHO and UNICEF came together to work out guidelines with the formula manufacturers. They all pledged publicly the follow the guidelines they agreed upon. But the reneged on that; in August of 1980 alone one agency documented 682 industry violations.
I should also note that the U.S. was one of only three countries out of 121 in the World Health Assembly not to ratify it, but that’s another story.
Their violations have expanded the grassroots boycott effort which has been going on since the late 1970’s. It was lifted for a time in 1984, but reinstated shortly thereafter.
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Thanks, Cranky.