And where do you work? Who's used your stuff to be an antisocial jerk? How's the beam in your eye?
Like, I generally pride myself on never having worked for any company I wouldn't admit to working for later, but even some of those are kinda bad. (I contracted at a daily fantasy sports company for a while, and I'm not proud of that.) The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
In any case, I work at a small (< 100) company, with very selective clientele. I am unwilling to disclose exactly who. I have explicitly resisted recruiters from FAANG (well, neither Netflix nor Apple) because of the immoral work I would expect I would be doing, at a significant salary penalty.
Both accountants and programmers have immense freedom to make a decent living, while using their expertise, even while choosing to avoid ethically questionable roles and activities. At some point, yes, economic coercion is unavoidable. That's understandable for someone whose realistic prospects are $50k or nothing. $200k or $150k is a very different matter.
> > "they're willing to do great evil for even less personal benefit."
> " And where do you work?"
This is not an appropriate response.
> The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
Some jobs are much, much worse than others. Finding corporate tax loopholes is hugely evil, if hugely banal. That those people do it for a *relatively* meager salary does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it's evil.
It is wildly destructive to society to spend all day working to funnel money from social services to the yachting class. While it's very weird that they aren't seen as the hugely banal, hugely evil jobs that they are, once it's pointed out you might start thinking about it more.
> It is wildly destructive to society to spend all day working to funnel money from social services to the yachting class.
I don't see how this is relevant, given that it's not what corporate tax accountants do? All they're doing is figuring out how to use the tax system designed by the government to minimize the amount of money going to the government.
The government does not, as a matter of fact, spend all of its money on social services - vast amounts go to administration, national defense, social security (which is supposed to be self-sustaining), and other things, so this entire line of argument is invalid.
Moreover, the very fact that there are exceptions intentionally added to the tax code means that they're explicitly meant to be used, and therefore that using them is not evil.
Meanwhile, the fact that there are enough exceptions in the tax code and therefore less wealthy individuals and smaller businesses without the resources to make use of them are disproportionately disadvantaged is bad, and solely the fault of those who wrote the code in the first place.
You have a problem with the corporate tax rate and want it to be higher? Sure, that's valid. But randomly, axiomatically claiming that some people using the system the way it was designed are evil because they make too much money? Invalid.
By your logic, if a law makes torturing people legal, then the people who make it possible to do so - the psychologists advising, the guards, etc - are "valid" and not evil whatsoever. Only the law writer is at fault in your view.
While the US government may agree with you on that - other than the part where the law writer is at fault whatsoever - it's still very, very fucking evil to torture people. As is playing an essential part in the theft (morally and in reality, if not legally) of hundreds of billions of taxes.
Once again - legality is not morality. People seem confused on that point often, and it's very weird.
I'm reading my comment and I can't see where I said that legality implies morality. Where did I state that?
If you're talking about "Moreover, the very fact that there are exceptions intentionally added to the tax code means that they're explicitly meant to be used, and therefore that using them is not evil." - that's because the government is the writer, enforcer, and beneficiary of tax code - they have completely control over it, unlike someone who being tortured, who is none of those things. Completely different scenarios.
> As is playing an essential part in the theft (morally and in reality, if not legally) of hundreds of billions of taxes.
This is literally factually incorrect. There's no "theft" here - the government wrote the law to explicitly include these exception that corporate tax lawyers are using. "Theft" is taking something that doesn't belong to you. Taxes are the government asserting that some of the money that you earn belongs to them. When the government writes an exception into the tax code, that's them asserting that they do not own the money covered by that exception, and therefore it is not theft by definition.
You haven't even provided a single justification for your baseless assertion that this is "evil" - just a lot of misdirection and emotionally manipulative statements like "People seem confused on that point often, and it's very weird."
