Consumer & Marketing Ethics

CONSUMER & MARKETING ETHICS

ARMAMENTS

The Arms Trade

The arms trade is a very sensitive topic and one that holds many preconceptions regarding the industry, the governments and the companies who produce them. It has turned into a huge trade, which has become very profitable for many companies who manufacture them for their countries, and for many rich governments who sell them to countries where civilians are deprived of simple human rights because of this. Who is it that decides whether it is ethical or moral to do this, or whether the wealth that is produced by this very industry is worth all that comes from it? Is it not our world leaders? Or is it the immoral assessments made by the companies who produce them, and allow themselves to be dictated to by our governments?

The UK arms exports play a major part of defence industry sales and many people depend on employment generated by these sales. However, many care about the ethics and the human rights viewpoint of the arms trade and in addition, to the extremely controversial issue of one particular armament that is landmines. This will be discussed subsequently.

The people of countries who export arms do not know about the concealed tax costs that they have to pay, and to those countries who import arms (almost always those who are impoverished and economically challenged), do not think about the money taken away from economic development in order to import these weapons. www.controlarms.org, (2001)

Governments in rich countries are happy to sell arms to countries that commit gross violations of human rights, but they aren't quite so accommodating when it comes to welcoming asylum seekers from those same countries.

Deals of Destruction

It seems that nations like the UK and the US cannot see the devastating effects when making deals with countries such as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, which provides them with weapons and money and ultimately leads to war and destruction. Or perhaps they do realise it but choose to ignore it because of the sheer wealth that is accumulated from it.

For example, in the 1980's when the US trained Osama Bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill soviets and the CIA gave them $3 billion. And in 2000-2001, the US gave Taliban - ruled Afghanistan $245 million in aid, and that same year - September 11th 2001 Osama Bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people when two of his fellow terrorists flew planes into the twin towers in New York. Bowling for Columbine, documentary film, (2003)

Or perhaps when in 1982 the US provided billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians and then in 1983 secretly gave Iran weapons to kill Iraqis. Then when in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait with weapons from the US and the following year the US enters Iraq to go to war. How did this become acceptable? - For those two countries to be in war with each other both using Americas weapons - which made the US a lot of money. Bowling for Columbine, documentary film, (2003)

This is what many people cannot understand. They cannot begin to comprehend what makes sense in all of this.

Behind the Terror

Yet behind all of this destruction caused by our countries governments are the companies who produce armaments and also the illegal arms trade.

According to defence analyst Paul Beaver:

"The arms industry, both legal and illegal, is probably the biggest business in the world, the estimated spending on arms and equipment at $500,000 a minute". Beaver, (1999)

Defence companies in the industry are not spread around like multi national companies such as Unilevers or Coca Cola, in fact they are the complete opposite, they are unwaveringly national. Governments fear that national security is at risk and so everything is kept on a national level, including their senior managers, their factories and their shareholders. www.icbl.org, (2003)

The Americans seem to be ahead of all other countries and have some of the worlds top defence companies.

Below is a table illustrating the companies that produce arms and their revenues:

Company Country Defence Revenues $billion

Lockheed Martin United States 19.39

Boeing/McDonnell Douglas United States 17.90

Raytheon/Hughes/Texas Instruments United States 11.67

British Aerospace Britain 6.47

Northrop Grumman United States 5.70

Thomson France 4.68

Aerospatiale/Dassault France 4.15

GEC Britain 4.12

United Technologies United States 3.65

Lagardere Groupe France 3.29

Damler-Benz Aerospace Germany 3.25

Direction des Constructions Navales France 3.07

General Dynamics United States 2.90

Finmeccanica Italy 2.59

Litton Industries United States 2.40

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Japan 2.22

General Electric United States 2.15

Tenneco United States 1.80

TRW United States 1.71

ITT Industries United States 1.56

Lockheed Martin has the biggest defence revenue at $19.39 billion. Around 60% of their business is dedicated to the department of defence and their biggest customer is the US military. www.lockheedmartin.com, (2003)

All of these companies are completely legal. They all produce armaments and sell them to their own countries and to others. When in the right hands these weapons are being used exactly for what they are meant for. However this is not the case; 639 million small arms and light weapons are in the world at this time and 8million more are produced every year. www.contolarms.org, (2003)

Thousands of these weapons end up in the hands of thieves, villains and corrupt police and military officers who abuse them. Many believe that stricter