Case Study #3 – Should One Go to Work for the U.S. Military or a Military Contractor?
(Revised 4 April 2009)
Background
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
These two quotes are from Dwight David Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States. He was also a five-star general in the U.S. Army and led the allied forces in Western Europe at the end of WWII.
Much of what Eisenhower cautioned about has come true. The U.S. military budget is enormous, and companies within the military-industrial complex enjoy great favor and advantage that industries in commercial sectors do not enjoy. Meanwhile the infrastructure of the U.S. is in deplorable shape. The state of public transport in this country is abysmal compared with that of other industrialized nations. Our educational institutions go begging for money because so much of it has been siphoned off by the U.S. military-industrial complex. “This sector is intrinsically prone to principal-agent problem, moral hazard, and rent seeking. Cases of political corruption have also surfaced with regularity.” (Wikipedia)
Many of you will be faced with the dilemma of whether or not it is moral and ethical to go to work for a company that is part of this industry. Besides the general setting mentioned above, military hardware kills people. How can an engineer justify working to develop lethal tools and weapons that will hurt, maim, or kill people given ethical proscriptions against harming the public? Is it only the American public that is intended in these proscriptions?
References
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex
http://www.militaryindustrialcomplex.com/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Military-industrial_complex