The Audacity of RAGE

[marcus_sez_vote]

This makes my brain melt.

A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also

Comments

[russiandude]

Given the state of the economy, I can't see the intelligence in any person abandoning a paying job. I highly doubt someone is not going to hire a secretary because she didn't quit AIG early enough. In the job market, skills are all that matter.

[noradannan]

And, really, there's a difference between the bigwigs screwing people over and the regular people who have jobs there. It's not the secretary's (or the programmer's, etc.) fault that the pooch got screwed. I certainly hope it won't be taken out on them. I can't really recommend that any of them leave their job (which is likely already a position that may be cut) to make a moral stand against the few who messed things up. Yes, I would hope I'd never need to work for an immoral company, but I don't feel like regular workers at AIG are bad people for being there.

[egowumpus]

For what it's worth, it is very hard to find a company to work for that you can have confidence is operating under moral principles, if only because how upper management is chosen, makes decisions and is compensated is notoriously obfuscated. It is far easier to simply believe, willfully ignore or lie to yourself that your company is ethical, than to be able to build a strong case that it is.

[egowumpus]

If we're going on the basis of 'tipping point', one really should have left a long time ago if one were leaving on a point of ethical differences. But I'd note that if society has decided that AIG is 'too big to fail', there is also an ethical obligation to stay. Regardless of where the top brass ends up, the company doesn't run itself, and all the ethical people jumping ship isn't going to make it, suddenly, into a virtuous beast.

(Take that, the Garandi!)

[russiandude]

Let's also remember that not everyone in AIG works in the "we screwed up" division. It is a large insurance company with many branches. Why should the, for example, AIG Auto Insurance people feel at all ethically obligated to leave the company?

[egowumpus]

Um... I'm not saying they should.

But the idea is that if you're working in Auto Insurance, you're making money that is supporting executives who are allowing a major division of their company to do Bad Things. You're supporting Bad Things, and you probably don't want to - it's not unreasonable to say you have some ethical obligation to stop.

[marcus_sez_vote]

Yeah though that gets to the point about knowing what goes where and who is responsible.

By that same logic one shouldn't be a part of the U. S. government in any way, even if you're part of an organization/government funded institution that does "good works" (like say preventing the spread of infectious disease), since the U. S. government is currently engaged in war.

If I disagree with the government's views/actions do I then have an ethical obligation to not pay my taxes even if doing so is illegal? If I disagree with my employer's actions, can I violate a non-disclosure agreement? People do with media leaks and the like...

It's very tricky.

Be well.

[egowumpus]

Well, that's why I wasn't arguing that. I think there is a comparable ethical obligation to get involved in corrupt institutions - assuming you're doing so for ethical reasons. You shouldn't be unethically benefiting, but things don't get better on their own.

[russiandude]

That gets a bit weird. Let's say I know that my boss is using his salary/bonus from the profits I am making in his division to support a mistress and cheat on his wife. Let us also say that I know/feel that I am responsible for this division making a large enough profit and without it my boss would probably not be able to support his mistress.

Do I have an ethical obligation to stop "supporting" this behavior?

[egowumpus]

What your boss does with money he comes by ethically isn't going to translate. It is unethical for you to hurt the business because your boss is unethically using his ethical compensation for work done. In short, I don't think this can apply to what you're trying to get at

[egowumpus]

I will say, though, that this does go back to the "don't hang around or deal with unethical people". Giving you money for bread is an ethical transaction, but giving you money for bread you stole from the grandmother down the street, who you beat up to get it and will now die, gives me some culpability. That is why war profiteering is generally outlawed.

[russiandude]

It is my understanding that those in charge of the company have a obligation to make as much money as possible, while not breaking any laws, as that is what the owners, ie shareholders, desire.

If that means making business deals that are good for your company and bad for everyone else, then that's just capitalism at work. If that means prioritizing short term profits over long term consequences and then going out of business, well that's not unethical either. That's just poor decisionmaking and planning.

Now, killing people and corporate espionage are not usually ethical ways to make money, though accepted as a part of business to a varying degree in various cultures.