Is General Electric evil?

Just curious about the pulse of DU concerning big conglomerates. I'm not adding any other context. Just vote your gut:


Is GE evil?

they span generations of it.

we were talking about -- and reviling -- GE back during the nam protests.

If it weren't for GE, actually. My dad worked for them for 35 years before he retired. Payed for my college education. Honestly, IMO, I think there are far worse companies. Screwed up and crazy at times, and surprisingly inept about certain things though...

A thing cannot be evil. Is a wristwatch evil? Is a telephone evil?

Things can only be used to evil ends by evil people.

like GE has.

they are not at all unlike a principalities -- and they must exercise power as part of their reason for existence.

When you say "they are not at all unlike a pricepalities -- and they must exercise power as part of their reason for existence," who is "they?"

that any action taken by a corporation must be taken by the people running it. To describe GE as "evil" is to rob the people who run GE of their culpability. GE, in and of itself, is not evil, if such a thing as evil even exists. GE is simply a means to an end. What those means and ends are is defined by the people who use GE.

making a reference to machiavelli.

the people who run a principality -- particularly in a free wheeling universe like capitalism -- must use all the tools at it's disposal to keep the principality in it's ruling condition.

humans are extremely susceptible to corruption -- the breadth and depth of a corporation like GE simply fosters that corruption and makes it active.

now you can regulate it -- but unless you reduce it to components you probably cannot return it to something that isn't corrupt.

Bet you have never created anything in your life except a list of complaints.

They do biotech work as well. They have contributed research to clinical trials on vaccines..including a little bit of contract work on the HPV vaccine, IIRC. They also make superior CAT scan and MRI equipment.

They've been allowed to abdicate their responsibilities as citizens by hiding behind the corporation. If a corporation does evil things, then its evil.

a corporation with the size and influence like a GE simply must foster that evil s a tool to keep the corporation as a ruling influense.

It is a profitting tiered system of elite greedy bastards and bitches that take advantage of those they deem under them and are quite evil. A building for instance is not a corporation, but can be owned by one and ownership is not an ability of things.

It is a group of people and a group of people can be judged to be evil or not.

There are people who work at GE just so they can put food on the table, who have no personal interests in defense contracts or energy industry greed. I don't think you'll find anyone in the KKK who's NOT a racist.

At least according to the current fucked up laws of this country, they are.

How can an abstraction be good or evil? You might as well as if quadratic equations are evil.

A corporation exists only in a legal and formalistic sense. Corporations provide a framework for human activities, some good, some horrible.

In this sense, what are you asking? General electric is engaged in some activities, acting pursuant to various plans, that are unquestionably not in the interest of society at large. That just makes those actions bad, for most of us anyway.

What we really need to do is change the rules by which corporations must act.

I agree that the question is flawed, but you see that many DUers have no problem answering anyway.

Personally, I think that GE has done evil things, as many big corporations do. However, they also provide invaluable services. I don't think GE is evil.

couldn't even let him get to 60, and he had no health issues, either. The life of an engineer. He was lucky to get that far in his profession.

Might as well ask are cars evil since some people drive them badly and kill others.

And, they consider the world their necessary prey.

There's the rub. Corporate-bashing should be limited to their campaign contributions. GE creates electricity, which is needed, all well and good. It may have wealthy stockholders, but most of the people who work for it aren't wealthy.

This kind of thing just creates enemies. Even the most liberal person is going to defend the corporation they work for and the necessity of its products.

It explains the loggers. Condemn logging as evil, and people who make their living from it will be on the defensive and you won't get anywhere. There has to be a better way. They have to be reassured there will still be a place for them in society, not treated as if they are evil forest-killers. Then you get the reaction you can expect.

:shrug: I've been wrong before.

I've also been banned by your website before. Make that three times with the current banning.

Give me a PM here, dude.

They are a sponser of Oprah?
blib

They are very much WAR PROFITEERS "Big Time"

Say ... providing the latest medical equipment?

What others have said above is a good point...corporations are run by people, and cannot be inherently evil in and of themselves unless the people who run them make them so.

But calling GE "evil" is especially pointless because they do so many different things, their fingers are in so many different pies...some of which you might feel are bad and some of which you might feel are good.

Sure they are a defense contractor. But they also provide entertainment you may enjoy on NBC (and, yeah, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC). Sure they may be in nuclear power--but they're also in wind power. Sure, they may make tons of money off their financial services that you think is taking advantage of people who need credit--but they may have made an appliance that you like very much.

Corporate policies can be evil--but they're made by people. Change the people, you change the policies. Products and services may be those you like or those you dislike or know to be dangerous or whatever--but a company can stop being involved with them or become involved with them at the will of people within. How a company treats its customers and employees is up to policy made by people.

Corporations may have "personhood" in the eyes of the law, but they have no autonomous "personhood" outside of that that can make them "good" or "evil." We may speak of them that way, but it's only figurative and if taken to extremes, it's just silly.

We have the power to change our society so that where the $$ is would be in something else. Not that it's easy or can be done simply. There has to be a way. Why big corporations don't go in for alternative energy sources is a big mystery to me. Or environmental solutions. The solution to Global Warming. You'd think there was a market for that. But it seems there is a better market for war, and I don't understand it. Are we as a nation so egotistical that our military strength is more valuable to us than being the first to solve problems and invent new things. I grew up learning about Bell and Edison and thought we were the bomb, the country that did all those things.

The Chimpster has really dragged us down. We had a peace dividend when the Soviets folded, and we wasted no time finding a new enemy to fight rather than moving forward into a better way.

GE is no exception as they do have wind power like was mentioned and they are also into making solar pv (photovoltaic) panels as they took over a company by the name of Photowatt. They are into it, but make no mistake it is for big $. The opportunity was there for them to make the pvs cheaply because of the bankruptcy of Photowatt and GE picked everything up for pennies on the dollar. They didn't have to build the factory or pay full price for the expensive equipment to make them, but put their pv products out there at a higher price than the going price of others that had those financial hurdles and had to put that into the price of their products, hence GE has a much higher profit margin.
Also note that Shell and BP are a few of the others into the pv market from the big oil end of things. These pvs are very expensive to produce and is the biggest hurdle to their popularity amongst the populace. They are hedging the possibilties of oil running out, but only from a corporate view of needing a product to profit from as they aren't doing it to help the environment or hedge off our energy needs. They don't care as they are only evil profiteers who'd sell their souls for $.

over world populations. :shrug: evil? hmmmmf.

Is the use of nuclear energy for generating electricity inherently evil?

liability when they consider ramifications of their actions. Nuclear energy is an option, but one of my least favorites.

That was not my guess as to how the poll would turn out.

Been wrong before....

If you answer yes, then you have your answer.

If you answer yes, then you should agree that GE is not evil

but it must contain the elements of humanity -- it is a child of humans -- a creation.

and there is a great deal of difference between a mom and pop organization -- and a vertically and horizontally integrated multinational.

that organization is virtually a kingdom -- and must be extremely and methodically competitive.
it must use it's powers to keep itself on it's feet.

in other words -- it exhibits -- must exhibit all the many qualities of peopel that are evil.

more -- in order for it to be at it's ''best'' -- it must put money{and the bigger the corporation, power} before people. money is it's food, nutrition, it's air -- and it's reproductive organs.


while a corporation is not a person -- it does come very, very close to living and breathing -- and it must control, dominate -- and above all it must be not be indifferent to those goals -- in order for it to keep on -- especially at the top.

GE has managed to get several generations of people to commit to evil acts -- whether you like it or not.

it has history -- reams of documented history.

one cannot say GE is good -- not by any stretch of the imagination.

And that a small select wealthy make the majority of the profits on resources by all rights should belong to everyone?

And I'm way smarter than most of the chumps there! :P

but they do make a number of the best MRI machines around, and MRI tests have helped a lot of people. (Yes, like all modern medical testing equipment, they have been overused and abused. I grant that.)

They have a lot to answer for, but until and unless we change this whole obscene Corporate Personhood nonsense (and I'm not holding my breath on that) there are many other corporations nearly as bad, and none of them will be changing their ways any time soon.

GE, like any other corporation is driven by profit; they may be heedless of other concerns, but I can't say a faceless corporation is evil. What their present and former CEOs, Board members, and executive officers have done that may be evil, I leave to karma to work out with each of them.

General Electric

Run until 2001by “Neutron” Jack Welch, who made it a matter of principle to lay off 10% of his workers per year, the world’s biggest company churns out plastics, aircraft engines and nuclear reactors and media spin through NBC, CNBC, Telemundo, and msnbc.com.

CEO: Jeffrey R. Immelt
Military contracts 2005: $2.2 billion
Defense-related contributions in the 2004 election cycle: $220,950*

The world’s largest company by market share, General Electric’s revenues in 2003 totaled $134.2 billion. GE was run until 2001 by “Neutron” Jack Welch, who made it a matter of principle to lay off 10% of his workers per year.

General Electric makes household appliances, plastics, water treatment systems, lighting, medical equipment, and commercial financial services. It also makes aircraft engines and nuclear reactors, and keeps criticism at bay with its ownership of media giants NBC, CNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, and, in partnership with Microsoft, msnbc.com. GE’s recent partnership with Vivendi added Universal Studios, USA, Trio and Sci-fi cable channels to its $43 billion media empire.

General Electric is one of the world’s top three producers of jet engines, supplying Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other military aircraft makers for the powering of airplanes and helicopters.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=16

I've loathed him for a long time now. He's the bastard (as you point out, who thinks laying off the "bottom 10%" every year is sound management practice; the result is a widespread cutthroat mentality among people who ought to be working together for a company's betterment, but instead are in constant survival mode) who, when he 'retired', brought his particular form of 'management style' to the board of JP Morgan Chase before it became "Bank One" in disguise.

He brought us the "glories" of Six Sigma (may all its proponents wither), too. :puke:

Nothing like spending six months in countless meetings, going through week after week of conference calls with high-earning VPs on the phone for hours on end, measuring all kinds of things about a process, only to come up in the end with the conclusion that one senior technology officer (me) could have (and would have) told them had it not been "fighting the process" what she already knew: the change to the process was overkill and unnecessary. Oh, and did I mention we all got lucite 'plaques' for our involvement in this useless and expensive exercise? Didn't save the company a dime; didn't effect one single change.

I've been against GE for a long time due to many of the items CorpWatch mentions; the point remains, corporations aren't evil: Some People who run them ARE.

PS: I avoid buying any product from GE; have for decades.

Formerly run by one of the most loathsome bastard fuckers you'd sooner flip off than spit on for his ignorance.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2534065#2556001