Reading 08

Case Study: IBM and the Holocaust

The concept of corporate is a longstanding notion that exists, stating that the government should afford corporations some of the same rights as people.  This notion has a wide range of impacts, spanning legal, social, and ethical issues. Legally, there have been a number of supreme court cases throughout American history which have established to what extent corporations can be viewed as persons in the eyes of the law. For example, the 14th amendment guarantees the fair treatment of not only people, but corporations as well.  A more recent legal example of corporate personhood came in 2010: the famous Citizen’s United case.  This case guaranteed that corporations could spend money, just as people can, to donate to campaigns and elections in the hopes of placing desirable candidates in office. Further, corporations also have a right to take on social issues such as gun control, or the use of contraceptives, just as an natural person does. What is controversial about this, though, is that corporations tend to have much more influence than any normal person, so their social stances can have a significant impact on many people. For example, is a company owned by a catholic family is against the use of contraceptives, they can deny access to their employees, therefore imposing their social viewpoints on a large number of people.  This corporate clout also demands ethical accountability.  Gun stores must distribute their products in a safe way to ensure the safety of the population, and construction companies must be held accountable if they cut corners on safety measures. All of these issues and many more play into the complexities of American corporate personhood.

I believe the ethical dilemma surrounding IBM’s involvement in the Holocaust is very cut and dry. There is absolutely no excuse for a company to do business with any organization that so clearly evil as the Nazis were.  Other companies like Ford can claim that they had lost control over their German branches, and they still have openly apologized and taken on efforts to fix those mistakes.  Not only did IBM have complete control over what was going on in Germany, but they also have never accepted blame for their actions! What’s worse, it seems as though IBM worked directly with the Nazis to tailor their product line in order to make the Holocaust as logistically smooth as it could possibly be.  I honestly had no idea any of this was true, or the extent to which IBM positively impacted the Holocaust, and after doing research it has certainly changed my opinion on the company as a whole. Generally speaking, I believe it can sometimes be hard to identify how morally pure an organization is, and this can make it difficult for companies to decide who to do business with.  While they should always do their best to refrain from doing business with unethical groups, if the group exists in a grey area then I think it is up to the discretion of the executive leadership to decide what to do.  Regardless, if a group is as clearly contemptible as the Nazi’s there is no excuse to be doing business with them, and I believe IBM should be punished in some way for its previous actions.