if the choice was between “collaborate” and “stop existing” it becomes murkier.
No it doesn’t. We already established how much of a defense ‘just following orders’ allows, and that’s exactly as much defense these companies deserve: none.
You’re confusing a personal and moral decision with an economic one.
A company, the legal entity, is not a person (despite what some people say) and it can’t make any moral decisions. For a company the decision between “collaborate” and “stop existing” isn’t murky nor is it a hard one. Corporations exist to continue operating and to continue making money. They are machines built to do that one thing.
Now the people who run the company, are different. They are humans and they are capable of making moral decisions.
BMW is also an interesting example because they didn’t really make cars before hand. They made one model which was more or less of a failure until they were nationalized by the Nazi party to make aircraft engines and other vehicles. So the people who owned it did decide to jump ship when the company was taken over.
You’re confusing a personal and moral decision with an economic one.
Now the people who run the company, are different. They are humans and they are capable of making moral decisions.
I’m not confusing them, I’m refusing to accept a moral dodge that a corporation (which is just a bunch of people hiding behind a legal piece of paper) and the people making the decision should be held to different standards.
It’s like saying that a leadership position can’t commit crimes, but the person elected to that position can. The person is still making the call, but it’s somehow different because reasons.
i mean i agree, and i’m not saying that the owner family should be absolved for supporting the nazis, but companies are not people and in a capitalist world, especially in a country where “useless eaters” are vilified like in nazi germany, shutting down and thereby putting hundreds of thousands of workers out of a job would have huge consequences for the own population no matter the allegiance of a particular company.
however, it is also true that bmw in particular was very happy to collaborate and employed actual slave labor from concentration camps so that point is eroded somewhat…
however, it is also true that bmw employed actual slave labor from concentration camps so that point is eroded somewhat…
That’s kinda my point. This isn’t ‘oh no, we have to collaborate or die’, this is ‘oh, we have to collaborate? Cool, fuck those subhuman rats’.
Nazi collaboration companies killed people and contributed to countless human rights violations. Being ‘forced’ to collaborate is just a convenient excuse to wave away their crimes and how some of the people behind the companies were spared by justice because capital is convenient to capture.
No it doesn’t. We already established how much of a defense ‘just following orders’ allows, and that’s exactly as much defense these companies deserve: none.
You’re confusing a personal and moral decision with an economic one.
A company, the legal entity, is not a person (despite what some people say) and it can’t make any moral decisions. For a company the decision between “collaborate” and “stop existing” isn’t murky nor is it a hard one. Corporations exist to continue operating and to continue making money. They are machines built to do that one thing.
Now the people who run the company, are different. They are humans and they are capable of making moral decisions.
BMW is also an interesting example because they didn’t really make cars before hand. They made one model which was more or less of a failure until they were nationalized by the Nazi party to make aircraft engines and other vehicles. So the people who owned it did decide to jump ship when the company was taken over.
I’m not confusing them, I’m refusing to accept a moral dodge that a corporation (which is just a bunch of people hiding behind a legal piece of paper) and the people making the decision should be held to different standards.
It’s like saying that a leadership position can’t commit crimes, but the person elected to that position can. The person is still making the call, but it’s somehow different because reasons.
i mean i agree, and i’m not saying that the owner family should be absolved for supporting the nazis, but companies are not people and in a capitalist world, especially in a country where “useless eaters” are vilified like in nazi germany, shutting down and thereby putting hundreds of thousands of workers out of a job would have huge consequences for the own population no matter the allegiance of a particular company.
however, it is also true that bmw in particular was very happy to collaborate and employed actual slave labor from concentration camps so that point is eroded somewhat…
That’s kinda my point. This isn’t ‘oh no, we have to collaborate or die’, this is ‘oh, we have to collaborate? Cool, fuck those subhuman rats’.
Nazi collaboration companies killed people and contributed to countless human rights violations. Being ‘forced’ to collaborate is just a convenient excuse to wave away their crimes and how some of the people behind the companies were spared by justice because capital is convenient to capture.
yeah it was a bad decision to generalize on my part.