As a professional in a huge client-services company, I provide unglamorous work in my specialty for corporations of all sizes. Coincidentally, a few of these clients are defense contractors, while even more sell something (or are trying to sell something) to the Department of Defense and related entities. It's usually not something banal like bombs or guns -- in today's techcentric world, it's usually some kind of tech product, from radios to IT hardware, software, and consulting.
I also hold strong Quaker beliefs on war and social justice, am active in such causes, and am an Elder at a liberal-minded church.
Am I selling out in order to pay the mortgage? Indeed, we are all deliberate about where we spend our money, so as to further good -- but what about the flip side of how we make our money? I've been on DKos for over a year -- this is my first diary, and my respect for people in this community is such that I would greatly appreciate some insight from you all. More, with a poll, after the fold.
To me, this is a more serious issue than, say, working or buying at Corporate Chain Coffee and somehow feeling like I'm helping stick a shiv in my local coffeehouse and burn down the huts of poor coffee farmers. It's doing work, however minor, for a few companies that I would never work for as a direct employee, because they sell stuff whose express purpose is to help kill people.
The problem I see with trying to be "pure" is that it is a difficult goal in today's world. Many "good" companies like Apple and Google have some small degree of defense-related contracting. Additionally, technologies are licensed all the time -- all you folks who developed nifty Bluetooth, it's now being used in products to help kill more and faster. Even basic research can lead to horrendous uses -- perhaps not as spectacular at the atomic bomb, but do consider the reflections of scientists who saw their quest for knowledge lead to Trinity.
Furthermore, I am fungible. If I don't do the work, someone else will. Even if noone else did the work, given the nature of my specialty, it would probably not slow down the work of the company. Heck, even if it did, in this nimble economy, some other company would rise up to take its place. (Ja vol, Herr Kommandant?)
Finally, my family and I live in one of the most expensive areas in the U.S., in a county where the median home costs well over three-quarters of a million dollars. Both my wife and I work less than full time so that we can do things with our children and community and friends. Giving up my current job for one that does not have similar moral entanglements would have a significant impact on our modest life, perhaps even so much as to cause us to need to move far away.
I could refuse to work for the few clients who are dedicated defense contractors based on my religious convictions, but I've got to tell you, that would be unprecedented in my professional world. It could get me fired (and, for all you employment lawyers out there, I'm not an employee -- I'm a junior partner, which may be a more precarious situation), and probably will hurt my standing. But at the very least, if I made this decision, I would need to be able to respond to arguments from my partners like those I pose above, in an intelligent, logically concrete, and convincing manner.
Or, I could keep doing what I'm doing, and consider the minor work I do from time to time for such companies to be on par with, say, using Microsoft products, not exclusively buying locally-produced food, eating beef every year or so, never getting around to grappling with the morality of firearm ownership, commuting by car on occasion, missing the last local Iraq War protest, buying an occasional green tea at Corporate Chain Coffee, and other transgressions (I'm sure you each have your own meter from which of the above is not a transgression at all, or should be punishable by the stockades).
Am I trying to justify a morally bankrupt current career decision? Or am I hand-wringing over nothing? You tell me.