Don't be evil

Bodies of inmates of Belsen concentration camp

Three and a half years ago, I went to work for a bank in Glasgow. It wasn't a Scottish bank (not that this necessarily makes much difference), it was an international bank. I knew before I went to work for it that this bank was evil, although how evil it was I didn't know until I'd worked there some time. I went to work for them because I needed a job, and they offered me one. No-one else, at the time, did.

I know it's wrong, I thought to myself, but I don't have any choice.

People work for the Sun and the Daily Mail. A very small number of them seem to delight in doing evil, but I cannot believe that many of them do. They have mortgages to pay, children to feed. They know they're working for bad organisations, but, like me, they needed a job.

Similarly the folk who make weapons need jobs. They don't see themselves as bad people. They include many good engineers: weapons systems are full of interesting engineering problems. The folk who make bombs for Raytheon in Fife don't do it to slaughter children in Yemen, they do it to put food on the table for their own children.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. But we don't do nothing. We work - willingly - for evil-doers, and excuse ourselves by saying that we need to eat. We've made that excuse normal.

But software engineers working in Glasgow for a bank in Switzerland enable dictators, criminals and kleptocrats high net-worth individuals from across the world to launder dirty money from arms deals and drug deals and plain old fashioned theft of mineral wealth into nice safe properties in London.

Engineers and technicians in Fife working for an arms manufacturer in Massachusetts enable fanatics in Saudi Arabia to slaughter women and children cause collateral damage in Yemen.

Journalists in London working for proprietors in France and Australia feed the narrative of ignorance, prejudice and hate which enables the politicians who maintain the nexus of evil run a strong and stable government to be elected by ordinary decent software engineers in Glasgow, engineers in Fife, and journalists in London.

So what started this line of thought?

What started this line of thought was to ask myself, can all the Tory politicians be unaware of the fact they're standing for evil? Of course they can't. Some can, of course; some are stupid enough. I find it hard to believe that Rory the Tory understands what his party stands for. But most, like me when I went to work for the bank, must be making some compromise. They know their party will do great harm to most of their fellow citizens, but they see some benefit - if only, perhaps, that they too need a job - which makes that justified.

When concentration camp guards stand on trial in Nuremberg, we can all see clearly that 'I was just following orders' is not an excuse. But for ourselves, it is. We're just doing our jobs.

Software engineers in Glasgow working for banks in Switzerland are just doing their jobs. Engineers in Fife are just doing their jobs. Journalists working for the Mail are just doing their jobs. The claims assessors at ATOS are just doing their jobs. The administrators making cuts across the health service to balance the books are just doing their jobs.

Sat alone in their rooms Rupert Murdoch or Jamie Dimon or Ian King or Vladimir Putin can do little evil. It is because many ordinary people - people who will no evil - are prepared to work for them that they are powerful. It's because we've internalised the idea that it's OK to make compromises in an imperfect world that the tide of evil is possible.

It's time to say it's not. It's time to hold ourselves to the same standards to which we held those guards at Nuremberg. It's time to say we are morally responsible for the evil we knowingly enable.

It's time to stop enabling it.