CORRUPTION and ABUSE OF POWER are p

[MSoe9872@xxxxxxx]

Subject:  CORRUPTION and ABUSE OF POWER are part of the STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE.

http://www.stuent.ipfw.edu/~soem01

Militarized Nondemocratic System vs. Burma

    Militarized nondemocratic systems operate in many L.D.C or third world 
countries. Central America, Asia, for example, have been the scene of 
powerful military rulers and attempted takeovers in nations such as Burma, 
Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

A small wealthy class is sometimes allied with the military government, with 
its members serving in high-level government posts. Human rights and 
democratic freedoms may be severely curtailed by the government (eg. More 
recently, pressures from many sources have focused on alleged abuses of human 
rights in countries such as China, Burma and Nigeria) .

The press and media are normally government controlled and used for 
propaganada purposes. Unions, religious organizations, and some professional 
groups (eg. artists, teachers, writers, lawers, musicians) are watched 
carefully by government authorities to keep them from becoming vocal 
political opponents. Outwardly, the socioeconomic may appear to be a mixed 
system of private and state enterprise. Private markets may be tolerated and 
many privately owned business may exit.

The dictatorship government or military government may welcome foreign 
investment and foreign corporations. However, foreign companies and 
corporations will immediately withdraw their investments from those countries 
due to economic factors, political factors, social factors, human right 
factors, infracture factors, techonological factors, and skilled labors 
factors. There will be opposition political parties, although the opposition 
is unlikely to win or won in elections, which are usually controlled and 
oppressed by the government and military.

These military regimes have sometimes been pawns of the superpowers as they 
engaged in skirmishes in different parts of the region. for example, Burmese 
military generals were long supported by the China, its allies as a way of 
keeping Burma's natural resources away from the global and western market.

Sometimes they have been the result of the ambition of local military 
officers, impatient with other forms of democratic self-government ( eg., 
Nigeria, North Korea, and Burma are the among the current restrictive brutal 
military regimes).

Military-political regimes present serious ethical and strategic problems for 
business leaders. In an effort to generate economic activity, such regimes 
may make attractive deals with foreign companies.

Low taxes, low wages, freedom from criticism in the press, and weak 
enviromental rules and regulations are among the attractions that a military 
regime can creat through its power. 

Still, if a company knows that human rights are suppressed, that military 
leaders are lining their own pockets with money that should go to the 
country, and that CORRUPTION and ABUSE OF POWER are part of the STANDARD 
OPERATING PROCEDURE.

Business leaders must pause and think about long-term consequences. The 
strategic business question is an ethical question:

Do the benefits of doing business in such a system outweigh the economic, 
human, and social costs?

 

Msoe

Indiana University

Reference:

James E. Post, A.T. Lawrenece and J. Weber. "Corporate Strategy, Public 
Policy, Ethics"; Business and Society.