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Originally Posted by ratbastid
That's really the crux of it. There's always a justification for this sort of behavior. If it wasn't me, it'd be somebody else (so, since there's profit in it, it may as well be me). Besides, I make (for instance) bulldozers that help people build stuff, so that makes it all okay.
(Edit: Not that the bulldozers are that great an example. I actually don't see that what Caterpillar is accused of stands out from basic corporate behavior enough to make a "14 worst" list. Seems pretty garden-variety to me.)
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I've always been concerned about moral equasions (one bad + one good = 0, or 3 peoples lives > one person's life). Is Phillip Morris not guilty of deaths from cigaretts because they do community services? I mean I can appreciate that Caterpiller probably helped to make the highways and buildings in my town, but does that make it okay to sell their product to be used to destroy people's homes? To me, the answer is a big no. Caterpillar makes money from the sales of their product, no matter who they sell to. Whether they sell to Habitats for Humanity or the al Qaeda, they get paid. The real question at the end of the day is what is more important... getting another big contract and making more money and being indirectly responsible for the destruction of homes, or not getting the big contract and not being indirectly responsible for the destruction of homes? Corporate responsibility and ethics dictates that one's product should be used to help, not hurt.