From Cedric Griffiths
Frank Jackson and Peggy Conroy point out that war is a profitable business, if not the most profitable business (25 July, p 26). The “military-congressional-industrial-complex” and the multinational banks that were arguably one of the driving forces behind the current financial meltdown, along with all corporate bodies in the western world, share one major flaw.
Their directors are legally obliged to put the interests of shareholders above everything else. While they may be required to pay lip service to the environment, customer well-being, sustainable strategies and the efficacy of their products, they are ultimately judged in the market by the return they offer investors, and can be held negligent if they do not put that return first.
I would suggest, rather than requiring scientists and technologists to sign a version of the Hippocratic oath, changing corporate law to include a “first do no harm” clause.
Ewa Bacon claims that war stimulates technological progress (1 August, p 24). Instead I suggest that the key progress in any “thread” of research actually occurs in peacetime.
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What happens to research during any protracted war is the unfocused application of resources, which most often yields failure. If war ever stimulates success, this is primarily due to the temporary removal of patent restrictions.
War should be replaced by a version of the ritual war games found in the more civilised societies of New Guinea prior to contamination from the west.
Kensington, Western Australia
