The deliberate disconnect between manufacturer and purchaser is an established and carefully-observed means for avoiding liability or consequences for the applications of ones products and processes. For example if a company makes a poison gas for killing herds of diseased livestock, and a buyer uses it on humans, the maker bears no direct consequence for its misuse. This is a very slippery slope. Once a maker has discovered any wrongful use of its products or processes, it would stand to reason, or rather it would seem imperative, that the maker would call public attention to the misuse, cease furnishing its output to the perpetrators, and call worldwide governmental attention to the perpetrators. But profit, or to use Michael Haynes phrase corporate cash flow, trumps other concerns for the maker and its investors. This puts great pressure on the makers to keep their mouths shut, their hands off, and their scruples asleep when they deal in the immensely-profitable implements and processes of war and destruction. Examples are available in plenty. Its long past time to elevate this problem to global attention and the exacting of its consequences. Both the fortunes and the lives of the makers of these ghastly things must be put at stake and kept at stake, because without skin in the game, they can never lose.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 17:01:46 +0000