[Mb-civic] Business, and Repression, as Usual - Richard Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Business, and Repression, as Usual

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, January 19, 2006; A19

The charm of businessmen in general is not only that they lack irony 
but, because they took business courses in college, they lack basic 
knowledge. That explains why they unknowingly suggest Anatole France, 
who in 1894 wrote, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich 
as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and 
to steal bread." In somewhat less literary language, Microsoft has just 
said the same thing.

The speaker of this unintended echo was Brooke Richardson, a group 
product manager (whatever that is) for Microsoft. She was responding to 
inquiries about the company's decision to help shut down a Beijing 
blogger at the request of the Chinese government. "Microsoft does 
business in many countries around the world," Richardson explained. 
"While different countries have different standards, Microsoft and other 
multinational companies have to ensure that our products and services 
comply with local laws, norms and industry practices." In other words, 
Microsoft follows the law in America and it follows the law in China -- 
never mind that there really is no law in China.

Yahoo is similarly evenhanded. When the Chinese government asked the 
company who among its many users was sending out certain embarrassing 
e-mails, Yahoo provided the name -- Shi Tao -- and he is now serving a 
10-year prison term at what amounts to hard labor. He works at a prison 
jewelry factory, cutting and polishing stones, and reportedly suffering 
from the dust produced. According to the organization Reporters Without 
Borders, "at least 32 journalists and 62 cyber-dissidents are currently 
in prison in China."

Yahoo, of course, explains its actions the same way Microsoft does -- 
or, I suppose, as does Cisco Systems, which produces the equipment with 
which the Chinese censor the Internet: just following local custom. 
Maybe they have something of an argument, since American tech companies 
have supposedly cooperated with the National Security Agency in the 
effort to listen in on international phone calls -- a program disdaining 
court-issued warrants or congressional authorization. Still, there 
remains a vast difference between American-style illegality (if it 
amounts to that) and its Chinese equivalent. The law in China is what 
the Chinese leaders say it is. Currently it is illegal to post 
information on the Internet that "creates social uncertainty." Try 
defining that.

The Internet may be new, but not the issue of whether an American 
corporation should do business with bad people. Many an American fortune 
was based on the slave trade or exploitation of the Indians or some such 
atrocity. According to allegations in a recent book, IBM did business 
with Nazi Germany and, more recently, a good number of U.S. corporations 
helped the old apartheid regime in South Africa with its security 
concerns. Capitalism has always been amoral, eschewing moral 
considerations for the only one that counts: Will the check clear?

Still, the panting willingness of American firms to do business in China 
has produced a bumper crop of hypocritical justifications. The first 
one, as noted, is that silly stuff about adhering to local laws 
everywhere in the world. The second is the contention -- the slim hope, 
actually -- that by helping China with its Internet or whatever, we 
wonderful Americans are also encouraging the growth of a middle class 
and a concomitant interest in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. In the 
meantime, the use of such terms as "human rights" or "Dalai Lama" in the 
title of a blog entry is not possible with the MSN blog tool. In China, 
a typo can cost you plenty.

Clearly, if the Chinese market were tiny, America's high-tech companies 
might not be willing to snitch on their customers and help send them to 
jail. But the market is vast -- an astounding 1.3 billion people, 103 
million of them already on the Internet. (The United States, with 203 
million users, is about maxed out.) Hard to turn down, it seems. Much 
better to cooperate in censorship and, if need be, the occasional 
jailing of some dissident. Business is business, after all.

But just as public pressure was brought on American companies that 
helped South Africa subjugate its own people, so should pressure be 
brought on the current crop of moral dunces. This is particularly the 
case with companies such as Yahoo, which fingers users so that they can 
be arrested. Corporations are legal fictions, an abstraction that lacks 
a conscience. The men who run them, though, are flesh and blood -- like 
Terry S. Semel, Yahoo's chief executive. This week he reported healthy 
gains. Alas, he did not report the loss of a single night's sleep.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801875.html
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