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 of Anatole France was Brooke Richardson,
a group product manager (whatever that is) for Microsoft. She
was responding to inquiries about the company's decision to 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 current effort to overhear 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 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 was 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 U.S.,
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 like Yahoo, who finger 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 CEO. This week he reported
healthy gains. Alas, he did not report the loss of a single night's
sleep.
©
2005, Washington Post Writers Group
