It is pretty radical to argue that a small contingent of Zionist Israelis would be successfully eradicating the people of Palestine if both sides just had sticks, so the U.S. should just keep manufacturing and selling MK-84 bombs. Or we can talk about how absurd a claim it is that the arms industry is looking out for the little guy—you know, the group that can pay for less of their product? Thank god for arms manufacturers—that’s probably what Uyghurs think when they’re stopped at checkpoints by military police
I mean yes there is a sort of “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” dilemma when it comes to working. But just with that dilemma, you don’t just give up, you try to minimize your participation as much as you can healthily do. And I think not working for a corp who’s sole purpose is to develop weapons for killing people is one of those no brainers.
I do think there is nuance to the situation and exceptions. Your example being one. But I would consider Lockheed (the example of the original post) would be the no brainer one. Those weapons aren’t going to defending my family from an imperialist power, they are going to death squads in South America and committing genocide in Palestine.
With Lockheed you are forced to choose between being complacent with it because they supply Ukraine’s defense against occupation by an imperialist power or outright oppose it due to its supplying towards the Palestinian genocide. The genocide is a dealbreaker in any capacity for me. Even ignoring the genocide, the bad outweighs the good to me by a longshot. I oppose it just like how I oppose McDonald’s, Amazon, Starbucks, and more.
The reason why I put Palestine over Ukraine is because Palestine is a genocide right now, while Ukraine isn’t. Ukraine is two capitalist states fighting.
I do still also think working for a defense contractor like Lockheed is wrong as working for them is far more direct of a hand in death than most other jobs. And I wouldn’t say they are immoral, they are chasing money (which in of itself is immoral) and chose to do it through profitting off of war. They may do good sometimes but it is not out of the goodness of their hearts, its to profit off of killing each other. And just as I do with elections, if the game is pick a lesser evil I will not play.
And with the McDonald’s et al yeah I wouldn’t shame those working there, I lost track of my point. Was just trying to say I take action to oppose them, just like I would with Lockheed if I could (I don’t live near one and I cant buy their stuff to begin with lol).
I won’t deny its more complicated than I gave it credit for, but I think Lockheed is indefensible of a corporation. Working for them is a deal with the devil. There are reasons why I wouldn’t shame someone for working there, but they are exceptions and not the rule.
One, the issue isn’t the production of weapons in of itself. Weapons are used for defense, survival, and recreation which are (in my opinion) ethical. The issue is “defense” contractors like Lockheed are not producing weapons to defend against exploitation, oppression, etc. They are produced for imperialist powers to defend the interests of exploitors, oppressors, and war mongers.
Secondly, I am an anarchist. Statist “communists” are often no better than capitalists to me.
OK, I guess we should stop harvesting wheat and making flour because it could possibly be used to support a genocide, but don’t even bother thinking about stopping the manufacture of the bombs being dropped.
Plus you have deterrance weapons like the F22. It hasn’t actually killed anyone, because no one has challenged it. That sort of weapon can keep wars from starting, since they’re less likely to win.
I’ll go even farther. Have you voted in the last 50 years? Guess what you help elect the president and chief commanding death at the end of the bayonet and the from the top of the drones.
Hmm if all the candidates will both be responsible for killing people, are the people who didn’t vote responsible? Technically the only innocent people would be the ones who stop the candidates from being elected. but I’ll drink to improving society as a whole.
First, props for backing a bonafide unpopular opinion so unflinchingly. (A) discusses your argument. (B) challenges it.
A. I liked your direct approach to this position, and think you raise some important points. In particular…
It’s important to acknowledge that we all serve this machine in some capacity by our engagement with the free market. But why?
Economists call these markets efficient (i.e., pareto efficient) because of how quickly they achieve equilibrium/zero-sum states in response to change.
That efficiency is the curse no participant can outrun, because anything short of complete absence from the market necessarily furthers its result, which always includes violence. In other words, no one’s hands are clean.
Appearing closer to acts of violence often has little to do with magnitude of influence or actual violence produced. How so?
Suppose we define violence quotient (VQ) for the roles of market participants, some formula to rate the lockheed engineers and steel workers of small arms manufacture, etc.
We could measure VQ in lots of ways — e.g., by the count of people hurt, the severity of suffering, the degrees of causal separation between the violent act and the role behind it, etc.
For each case, it seems we can always find a role further from the violence with higher VQ — a much greater hand in the violence — to the extent that we have old tropes contrasting the direct-but-limited violence of the simple-minded goon and the detached yet far-reaching avarice of the ruthless kingpin.
So it’s true that working on a small piece of an incremental improvement to some military technology isn’t technically going to be easily traced to much bloodshed, comparatively.
B. But each of these observations correspond to a problem with the idea that the roles we choose don’t matter…
While the principle of efficiency makes all of us morally culpable — again, because we drive the market onward by merely living in it — by the same token this machine tells us what it wants most, and does so quite unambiguously: by naming a price.
Concretely, for any two roles considered, you can bet that whichever offers greater personal benefit is the choice that further maximizes overall productivity, accumulation of capital, and ultimately violence.
This heuristic is mostly useless to the individual (since a strategy of deliberately minimizing personal benefit is like trying to use your body to slow a speeding train… you’ll only slow it down about one human’s-worth).
But when many individuals coordinate to decommission machines like ours by agreeing to make small survivable sacrifices, they achieve collective action, which has halted many a train.
What delays collective action, however, is choosing instead to look out for number one, to defect against the social contract.
And that is the social problem OP describes. So one might then ask why is it a breach of the social contract?
Ultimately it’s the symbolic value of the choice that’s so disappointing.
It’s obviously not the “VQ” of your military-industrial job, how close to the violence you work, or any such utilitarian metric.
It’s not even the individual intent. Most Americans still at least pay lip service to the individual “pursuit of happiness” idea.
In the end, it’s simply that a person chose the money in spite of everyone’s misgivings about what these contractors represent and purvey in our world, because each defection, however minor, makes the victory of collective action feel just a bit further away than they once hoped.
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It almost sounds like you might be suggesting that there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism
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If less people worked to make weapons, there would be less weapons made.
How is this a hard concept to understand?
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Israel, Russia, and Ukraine sure seem to think so. None are producing enough munitions domestically to satisfy themselves.
Less weapons made still means less weapon used.
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So do you work for a defense contractor or do you just have great respect for the act of killing in general
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It is pretty radical to argue that a small contingent of Zionist Israelis would be successfully eradicating the people of Palestine if both sides just had sticks, so the U.S. should just keep manufacturing and selling MK-84 bombs. Or we can talk about how absurd a claim it is that the arms industry is looking out for the little guy—you know, the group that can pay for less of their product? Thank god for arms manufacturers—that’s probably what Uyghurs think when they’re stopped at checkpoints by military police
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But you are literally arguing in defense of America, which is funding genocide, so now you are just straight up lying
Defending defense contractors isnt as cool as you think it is, Jesus would be ashamed.
I mean yes there is a sort of “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” dilemma when it comes to working. But just with that dilemma, you don’t just give up, you try to minimize your participation as much as you can healthily do. And I think not working for a corp who’s sole purpose is to develop weapons for killing people is one of those no brainers.
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I do think there is nuance to the situation and exceptions. Your example being one. But I would consider Lockheed (the example of the original post) would be the no brainer one. Those weapons aren’t going to defending my family from an imperialist power, they are going to death squads in South America and committing genocide in Palestine.
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With Lockheed you are forced to choose between being complacent with it because they supply Ukraine’s defense against occupation by an imperialist power or outright oppose it due to its supplying towards the Palestinian genocide. The genocide is a dealbreaker in any capacity for me. Even ignoring the genocide, the bad outweighs the good to me by a longshot. I oppose it just like how I oppose McDonald’s, Amazon, Starbucks, and more.
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The problem of manufacturing weapons would be significantly less controversial of LM (for ex) had even a few scruples.
Defending yourself is fine.
Making tools to defend yourself is fine
Making tools for people to defend themselves is fine
Making and selling those tools for use in attacking is not fine.
Profiteering from harm is not fine.\
The reason why I put Palestine over Ukraine is because Palestine is a genocide right now, while Ukraine isn’t. Ukraine is two capitalist states fighting.
I do still also think working for a defense contractor like Lockheed is wrong as working for them is far more direct of a hand in death than most other jobs. And I wouldn’t say they are immoral, they are chasing money (which in of itself is immoral) and chose to do it through profitting off of war. They may do good sometimes but it is not out of the goodness of their hearts, its to profit off of killing each other. And just as I do with elections, if the game is pick a lesser evil I will not play.
And with the McDonald’s et al yeah I wouldn’t shame those working there, I lost track of my point. Was just trying to say I take action to oppose them, just like I would with Lockheed if I could (I don’t live near one and I cant buy their stuff to begin with lol).
I won’t deny its more complicated than I gave it credit for, but I think Lockheed is indefensible of a corporation. Working for them is a deal with the devil. There are reasons why I wouldn’t shame someone for working there, but they are exceptions and not the rule.
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Communists make weapons too tho. It’s kind of a whole cycle.
One, the issue isn’t the production of weapons in of itself. Weapons are used for defense, survival, and recreation which are (in my opinion) ethical. The issue is “defense” contractors like Lockheed are not producing weapons to defend against exploitation, oppression, etc. They are produced for imperialist powers to defend the interests of exploitors, oppressors, and war mongers.
Secondly, I am an anarchist. Statist “communists” are often no better than capitalists to me.
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Yeah, I think they’d argue for DU instead of against it. They’re not using that against people they’re using that against war machines.
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OK, I guess we should stop harvesting wheat and making flour because it could possibly be used to support a genocide, but don’t even bother thinking about stopping the manufacture of the bombs being dropped.
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I agree: Everyone is terrible.
Plus you have deterrance weapons like the F22. It hasn’t actually killed anyone, because no one has challenged it. That sort of weapon can keep wars from starting, since they’re less likely to win.
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Would you rather they be used? Best case scenario is that they prevent the battle from happening.
I’ll go even farther. Have you voted in the last 50 years? Guess what you help elect the president and chief commanding death at the end of the bayonet and the from the top of the drones.
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Hmm if all the candidates will both be responsible for killing people, are the people who didn’t vote responsible? Technically the only innocent people would be the ones who stop the candidates from being elected. but I’ll drink to improving society as a whole.
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Kill the killers is the best option until we gaze to long and deep into the abyss…
First, props for backing a bonafide unpopular opinion so unflinchingly. (A) discusses your argument. (B) challenges it.
A. I liked your direct approach to this position, and think you raise some important points. In particular…
B. But each of these observations correspond to a problem with the idea that the roles we choose don’t matter…
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