Ethics and Corporations

[Chomskyan]

I really hate swearing fealty to corporations that are unethical beyond all measure.

That's why I'd like advice. What are steps to take so I don't sign my humanity away with the job offer? What corporations are more ethical that posters can recommend? I know that Shell and BP are imperial corporations, most multinationals are bad news also.

Please, I need advice.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I really hate swearing fealty to corporations that are unethical beyond all measure.

That's why I'd like advice. What are steps to take so I don't sign my humanity away with the job offer? What corporations are more ethical that posters can recommend? I know that Shell and BP are imperial corporations, most multinationals are bad news also.

Please, I need advice.

I don't know what corporations are "ethical", but every capitalist enterprise is part of the problem, from Lockheed Martin to the local deli. All of them require private property, wage labour etc.

This sort of individual lifestyle activism has never helped things.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The corporations that everyone targets as 'unethical' are only targeted because they are the most successful capitalists. I'm sure your local, regional, or nation-wide business would be involved in the same dodgy practices as many multi-national corporations if they had the capital and the success.

So really the question isn't 'how can I work for a company that is ethical?', but do I have the ability to go into a career that will enable me to carry out socially useful work. Think educators, medical staff, emergency services, public/human rights lawyers etc.

I guess if you are in the position of near-absolute wage slavery where getting a job in such a sector is not a possibility then just take what you are given; at the end of the day the reserve army of labour (the unemployed and under-employed) is large enough that if you reject a call centre or factory job because of your ethical stance, all that will happen is that you are replaced with somebody at no real expense to the 'unethical' company, and you will personally be materially worse off, so I wouldn't bother putting ethics before your own material interest.