I agree... this is an interesting concept we should explore. As an analogy to the corporate veil, basically anything a person would do in their employment would generally be forgiven as "well, you've gotta make a living", unless it reaches a point where it's sufficiently morally wrong to still hold the person responsible for their actions on the job. For example, if their job were Winston Smith's (George Orwell character) job of editing historical news articles to distort the past, then we might say Winston is still personally responsible.
The difficulty here is holding CEOs responsible for crimes with "piercing the corporate veil" is holding a high level, powerful decision-maker, with options, responsible... rather than a person who might be trying to support 5 kids and some elderly parents, and couldn't just choose to sweep the street instead of working at the Ministry of Information for 6 figures.
This can be said of anyone who is taking part in an abusive activity, and it's equally untrue every time it is said. Advertisement is a very high-end job in the grand scheme of things. People who work in advertising have many career choices at their disposal, it's not like it was the only available job to people in their district and social class, the way mining jobs were in mining towns a hundred years ago. It's a choice that they made, and continue to make every day.
The advertising industry isn't the way it is because it has a will of its own. It ended up like this because a bunch of people shaped it to be like this, and even more people agreed that this is how things should be.
I can understand people who are just starting out in this activity getting a free pass -- they don't really know how things are going in this field, so it makes sense to be a little lax on accountability.
But after that? Why avoid responsibility after that? Or is "making a difference" something we're only allowed to say if you're making a good difference in the world?
I agree with most of what you've said, but I'd add:
> People who work in advertising have many career choices at their disposal
This is a rhetorical trap. If someone has no options left but to abuse their fellow man in order to survive - that doesn't make it respectable.
Inevitable - sure. Something we should tolerate? No, we should call it out, and work to eliminate the circumstances that lead to that sort of thing happening.
> If someone has no options left but to abuse their fellow man in order to survive - that doesn't make it respectable.
Respectable as an activity, no, but understandable -- yes. From the comfort of your own home after a light lunch, it's easy to say that you should refuse to participate in the advertising industry, even if that means starving on the streets. The people who choose advertising over seeing their kids grow up without a childhood certainly don't deserve the kind of wrath and disrespect that we (justly!) show to those who engage in this dubious kind of activity so that they can get a bigger yacht.
> From the comfort of your own home after a light lunch
I don't think this sort of ad hominem attack is productive; it instantly puts people on guard and stifles debate.
I may be mistaken, but as far as I'm aware, you know nothing about me or my background.
That out of the way; I think the idea that people work in advertising because otherwise they'd be homeless and starve is a falsehood. It might be true in some cases, but there are literally millions of counterexamples.
It wasn't an ad hominem attack -- I didn't mean you specifically :-). I'm sorry if that wasn't more obvious in the post. It's the same as "You generally want to double-check before you run rm -rf" -- I mean, you probably do, too, but it's meant as a general statement.
Edit: other than that, I obviously agree that's an extreme (and rare) case. I just want to emphasize that it's worth keeping the exceptions in mind. The advertising industry is what it is, and everyone who chooses to work in it is responsible for what they do -- but that's true of every mentally-able adult, that doesn't mean everyone is also truly free to make a choice.
Show me on this doll of the org chart where the responsibility was abdicated.
If you're a summer intern, sure, you can go home and feel good about getting extra credit. If you're the CEO who pushes dark patterns and chooses to sacrifice security for profit, you should toss-and-turn at night. But at which point can we say, "you, the person who knowingly implemented this piece of shit pattern that enables malware to be delivered straight into my machine, did a bad thing, and are personally culpable"?
It really depends what you mean by 'personally culpable'.
I don't think anyone should have force used against them (e.g. prison time, fines).
However, it's not only completely fair, but inevitable, that someone's actions influence how they're seen by others.
If your job involves being an asshole, then it's completely unsurprising that people will see you as an asshole. Because you are one. The fact someone pays you to do it is immaterial. You're not an actor at work, your actions have consequences in the world we all live in.
Maybe I should have said "ethically" or "morally" instead of personally. I'm not suggesting we ride people out of town on a rail, or tar and feather them, but I definitely agree that if you work for an asshole company doing asshole things, that makes you an asshole, with all the social consequences that follow the label.
>If you're a summer intern, sure, you can go home and feel good about getting extra credit.
Unless the summer intern didn't accomplish a single thing, maybe not. I would say that you are guilty if you ordered something bad to be done, or carried out a bad order, and an accomplice to the guilty if you supported the actions of someone who was ordering or carrying out something bad.
After WW2 it was established that soldiers following orders were still guilty of crimes if they knew that their actions were unlawful. Following orders does not excuse guilt.
If you're the person without whom the project can't go ahead or will suffer a major inconvenience (at worst, filling your position with someone else) then you get part of the collective responsibility.
