The article in the url below comments on the recent uprisings among the employees of tech companies who are objecting to their employer's involvement with U.S. military agencies (see also Strategic CSR – Google):
"Over the past few months, a fierce debate has erupted in Silicon Valley over whether large technology companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft should join forces with the United States military, along with agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
As the author notes, so far the "debate has been conducted along ethical lines." He cites a recent example at Microsoft, whose employees drafted an open-letter to management expressing their concerns about the company's adaptation of its virtual reality hardware for application on the battlefield:
"'We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,' the Microsoft employees wrote."
In contrast, the author wants to take the conversation in what he sees as a different direction:
"This is a debate worth having. But there is a more pragmatic question swirling around it, one surprisingly few people are asking. Namely: Could Big Tech's decision to pursue controversial defense and law enforcement contracts be a financial mistake?"
He then cites the value of some of these contracts, noting that, on the face of it, they make sense. The costs come in the shape of potential reputation damage – among customers, to be sure, but also among potential employees who may think twice before working for such companies. The dramatic comparison used, to maximum journalistic effect, is with Dow Chemical's decision to supply the U.S. military with napalm during the Vietnam War:
"Dow Chemical stopped making napalm for the military in 1969, just four years after it had begun. But the reputational damage haunted the company for decades. … All told, the $5 million napalm contract most likely cost Dow Chemical billions of dollars. And it was the kind of unforced error that could have been avoided if company executives had listened to early signs of opposition, done some risk analysis and changed course."
The author's point is that, once a technology is developed for the military, the companies lose control over how it is used, forever. And, given that we are unable to predict how society's definitions of acceptable behavior will evolve into the future, even if we suppose that there is general support for these firms to work with the government today, that does not mean that support will always be there. And, as with Dow, if things go badly, they can go very badly for everyone:
"Already, there are signs of trouble on the horizon. At Stanford, fliers recently appeared on campus walls urging students not to work for Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir and other companies with reported contracts with ICE and law enforcement agencies. And artificial intelligence experts caution that the stigma of being seen as a war profiteer could repel idealistic recruits for years to come. … In fact, in today's corporate operating environment, turning down controversial military and government contracts could be a selling point."
All of this is fine. My point is to push back on the idea that this "financial perspective" is a different question to the "ethical" one the author begins with. I would say, instead, that it is the same question reframed using a financial lens. This is a lot of what Strategic CSR seeks to do. The basic argument is that, since most (if not all) company transactions can be monetized at some level (i.e., all stakeholder interactions have the potential to affect profit, either positively or negatively), then focusing on the finances is a more revealing analysis. But, it is not a different question and to focus on the finances does not remove the ethics from the decision. All decisions that we make, as humans, are based on our values/ethics/morals, the precise mix of which are unique to each of us. I have a different set of values than you do. We probably agree on many of them, but also probably, not 100% of them. As such, at the margins, I make slightly different decisions to you. But, where we are talking about our interactions with companies as stakeholders, the effect of our decisions (our values/ethics/morals in action) increase the firm's profit (when we engage) and decrease its profit (when we boycott). Like many in the mainstream CSR community, this author is drawing a clear distinction between the two (ethics and finances) while, from a Strategic CSR perspective, they are essentially indistinguishable.
Take care
David
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Why Napalm is a Cautionary Tale for Tech Giants
By Kevin Roose
March 6, 2019
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
B1
