IBM and Nazis (Reading08-lgrazios)

Corporate Personhood is the idea that corporations are persons and several rights that apply to persons apply to corporations. This  can have several legal ramifications like for example how corporations can sue, and be sued but it is different for them because as corporations they manage way much more money and therefore can settle thing differently. Also Corporations can’t go to Jail or serve time, for their illegal activities. Some other social and ethical ramifications are how corporations have the ability to use their money and influence to manipulate large amounts of people with no accountability for their actions therefore posing a threat to the people because there is no real “human-like” responsibility.

I believe that what IBM was doing with Nazi Germany was not ethical at all. I don’t really see an issue with a company doing business with an unethical organization if you don’t know because as a company your goal is to sell your product and you cant always keep track of what is being done with your product. But I believe that if you find out that harm is being done with your product you have the obligation to intervene, unless you agree with whatever is being done. If you disagree then you must do anything you can to demonstrate that you don’t agree with what is being done and therefore make sure that the uses of your product align with your company’s values. This is very tricky because as a company with stakeholders, you have a fiduciary responsibility to put the welfare and best interests of the company above his own, therefore obligated to seek the best monetary gain for the company. Due to this, you cant be selective of who you sell your product to. And as some people see it if the company is doing business with unethical people or organizations, you can refrain from doing business but this might result in being fired and the deal or whatever would be done anyways, so some people believe it might be a good idea to stay on board to regulate and in some small way control the uses of the product. What IBM did was no where close to this, the actually cooperated with the Nazis to personalize their product to their unethical use, which is the main issue. This can only mean that IBMs administration at that time, agreed with the Nazi ideology, and there collaboration went beyond the monetary gain.

            I believe that if companies will be treated with the same rights as individuals, they should be held to have the same ethical and moral responsibilities as people. These two things should come hand in hand. The issue in my opinions is that corporations seek to make money and most of the time there are unethical or immoral choices in doing so. Like for example, what IBM did was unethical there is no argument. They should be held responsible for the damage they did, I believe their relationship went far beyond that business with the Nazis and something should have been done.