[Vnbiz] Intel Vietnam refuses to pay bribes

[AD Marshall]

Whew!  I'm obviously having trouble keeping up with this thread.  It seems
several nerves have been touched.  Good sign...  ;)

Anh Hoanh, i'd like to note that i tried to choose my words quite carefully
and talked of what we might practically expect, of tendencies and relative
human responses of majorities to economic stimuli, like (holistic) relative
prices, costs and net benefits (ie, "economic profits"), rather than
specific examples of the isolated actions or motivations of individuals or
fringe groups, good and bad.

With that background set, i'd like to respond that i think that, in
principal, neither ethics nor economics absolutely precedes or rules over
the other.  They go hand in hand together, both influencing and responding
to the other, simultaneously, in real-time, so to speak.

And (as i think it is more accurate to portray chi Lien's post mentioning
ethics) even highly ethical people can all too often be seen being coerced
into submitting to survival tactics they do not particularly approve of, by
their economic situations.  Just as reasonably, the more economically lucky
and ethical among us can be expected to primarily sympathize or empathize
with them yet not follow their ways as models for our own.

One relative wealth or power, versus either others or one's past, doesn't
seem to change common behaviors much, as super-rich exist in both more
ethical and unethical circles and most actors in both still generally seem
to keep seeking even more power or wealth.

Of course, ethics are essential and have primacy.  But they, quite naturally
and necessarily, share those qualities with other influences upon us, not
the least of which are our economic circumstances.  Trade-offs, compromises
should, must and will be rationally or "practically" almost always be made,
almost everywhere.

But i wholeheartedly agree that, where feasible, an ethical solution almost
always provide greater *holistic* net benefits (ie, "economic
profit<http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/eco/chap9/e0909301.asp>"
accounting for even "opportunity
costs<http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/eco/chap9/e0909301.asp>")
than an unethical solution will provide.

That said, i'd again like to shift focus back to the context of all this.

Before he went to Heaven early this year ( ;)), Kurt Vonnegut, Jr (who i
know i fall back on too much ;)) wrote, "Susan Sontag and Arthur Miller, In
These Times.  Of Sontag, he said:
News > March 3, 2005By Kurt
Vonnegut<http://www.inthesetimes.com/about/author/86>
 **
<http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1999/susan_sontag_and_arthur_miller/&h=Susan%20Sontag%20and%20Arthur%20Miller>

She did get off one sound bite in an interview on television, which was to
me a stunning sermon in and of itself. She was asked what she had learned
from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel,
no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that
the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.
That, in a nutshell, seems to me to be one of the most compelling reasons
why "leaders" exist, are used and are wanted or needed by the vast majority
of peoples, anywhere, anytime.  (But, watch out, that also seems to be both
an observation of and argument for inevitable elitism. ;))

But please note a similarity of those proportions, 10:80:10, to a basic
observation and assumption, and a consequent application of mathematics as
statistics regarding populations in general: ie, the Normal Distribution and
Bell Curve, respectively.

It's seems it might well be quite normal (even rational) that some "80
percent could be moved in either direction" and the good and bad elites(?)
-- the "natural" leaders on average? -- should expect and include that fact
in their strategic designs if they want to attain their social goals, good
or bad.

It even seems, to me, that, yet again, it is much more than coincidental
that these relationships seem to fit together so well:

   - Âm | Yin | Passive Negation(?) | Demand | Bad(?)
   - Dương | Yang | Active Affirmation(?) | Good(?)
   - Đạo | Tao | A Way | A *Dynamical* Instance of a "General
   Equilibrium" | Better(?) -- for the moment or circumstances at hand.

So how do ethics fit into these dynamics?  Seems to me they'd be a part with
a higher priority and primacy, a part that would ride on our inherent and
ingrained emotions or inner feelings and impulses about things we meet, and
that they'll largely result in diverse autonomic or reasoned responses both
over time and across peoples.  The autonomic responses likely can be
continually retrained and the reasoned responses will best adapt over time
to the actor's environment and feedback on the ongoing retraining of each
actors' emotional responses.

Can i reasonably agree with your core proposition that, "The entire issue
has to do with ethics"?  Yes.  But it almost equally has to do with economic
circumstances and responses, too.

A population's responses, however, seem to "normally" be distributed quite
consistently over the long run, "by the end of which we're all dead", to
paraphrase Keynes.

In the shorter, more practical term of here and now (of "disequilibria"
being regularly corrected and recurring) some 80 percent of folks must
accept and respond rationally to their socio-economic circumstances,
including their moral mindset (in the broader Buddhist sense of mind being
both emotions and thoughts) -- "socio-economics" being, notably, a sub-set
of the broader "economics".  Sometimes ethics can or will and should
prevail.  Too often, that just isn't be feasible.

To me at least, economic conditions, primarily "skewed" distributions of
income, seem to be the most predominant factor impeding most folks wishes to
act according to their ethics.


In parting, in case anyone wonders, here a some quotes i'd choose for this
post from the many more at "Value Quotes - Quotations on value, values,
virtues and ethics - from Socrates to Hsi-Tang, from Genesis 1:1 to The
Dalai Lama, from Warren Buffett to George W. Bush<http://www.valuequotes.net/>
":

Treating people with respect will gain one wide acceptance and improve the
business. -- Tao Zhu Gong 500 B.C., Assistant to the Emperor of Yue, 2nd
Business Principle

In making judgments, the Early Kings were perfect, because they made moral
principles the starting point of all their undertakings and the root of
everything that was beneficial. This principle, however, is something that
persons of mediocre intellect never grasp. Not grasping it, they lack
awareness, and lacking awareness, they pursue profit. But while they pursue
profit, it is absolutely impossible for them to be certain of attaining it.
-- Lü Bu-wei 246 B.C., Chinese Prime Minister under Emperor Ying Zheng, The
Annals of Lü Bu-wei, Lu Shi Chun Qiu

Out of 5.8 billion people in the world, the majority of them are certainly
not believers in Buddhism. We can't argue with them, tell them they should
be believers. No! Impossible! And, realistically speaking, if the majority
of humanity remain nonbelievers, it doesn't matter. No problem! The problem
is that the majority have lost, or ignore, the deeper human values -
compassion, a sense of responsibility. That is our big concern. -- The Dalai
Lama in Time, December 1997

[Personally, i usually think i'm lost in the that majority, maybe 80 percent
of my time.  ;)  C'est la vie.  "What, me worry?" ;) -- ADM]

And just for you, Anh Hoanh:

Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before
you and aligning your life to be congruent with them. -- Stephen Covey,
American leadership consultant and writer

For the newer generations, a predictions i hope have time to come true while
we're still freely Internetworked worldwide -- and before our older
generations finish off our feasible Environment for acting "normally" ;) --
a quote that reminds of a book excerpt recently read about the leadership of
Virgin's Richard Branson, at India's Express Computer Weekly, "Don't lead
sheep, herd cats"<http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070813/technologylife02.shtml>:


Executives will have to invest more and more on issues such as culture,
values, ethos and intangibles. Instead of managers, they need to be
cultivators and storytellers to capture minds. -- Leif Edvinsson, pioneer on
Intellectual Capital in Corporate Longitude 2002

And for this post's author's own amusement:

In God we trust, all others bring data. -- Dr. W. Edwards Deming 1900-1993,
American Statistician

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. --
Epicurus 341  B.C.-270  B.C., ancient Greek philosopher, father of hedonism

Cheers, y'all,
AD


On 8/16/07, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear brother Phong & CACC,
>
> I don't know if there is statistics about FCPA exists.  You can do the
> research yourself to find that out.  I know that we lawyers treat it very
> seriously.  ALL American international trade lawyers I met, without ONE
> single exception, mention FCPA every time we discuss the potential of doing
> business with Vietnam.  Many lawyers I know have decided to stay away from
> Vietnam and counseled their clients to hold off on Vietnam ventures, citing
> corruption and FCPA.  Others, like me, decided to do work in Vietnam while
> staying faithful to FCPA regardless whether we could make a deal or not (In
> fact, I told ALL my clients before agreeing to represent them on Vietnam
> business issues that I do not do corruption and if they don't agree with
> that position, I can't represent them).
>
> If that is not serious treatment of the law, then what is?
>
> About brother Phong's recommendation:
>
> A set of anti-corruption laws must be in place.
> A free and independent press plays the most important role in exposing
> corruption.
> A fair, competent, and independent court is necessary to prosecute
> corruption
>
> This is a reasonable recommendation, except by itself it won't work.  If
> the free and independnet press is corrupt and the independent court is
> corrupt, anti-corruption law doesn't help.  And that is precisely the South
> Vietnam's pre-1975 experience.  I grew up pondering over that sorry
> experience every day of  my college life.  And this is what sis Bich Lien
> said missing besides legislation.
>
> The law and the system, regardless of how well it is designed, won't help
> much if the people in the system who runs the system is so corrupt.
>
> Brother Andi talks about economic issue, yes it may be correct in some
> cases.  But corruption has little to do with not making enough money.  Most
> corrupt people have more money than they ever need (in the relative sense,
> compared with others around them).  Just look around.
>
> The entire issue has to do with ethics, the voluntary sense of right and
> wrong in the people's heart.  A good law and good system doesn't hurt and
> actually will help in many instances, but the foundation upon which the law
> stands, the ethics, has to be strong.  As long as we don't realize that we
> have to work on building a strong ethics foundation in the people, i.e.
> making people believe in honesty, social responsibility, etc. then the law
> can't do its job well.  (Unfortunately, many among us either disregard
> ethics or even go so far as to say that ethics is not necessary in solving
> governng issues.  Sad!)
>
> Ethics, while having its own system of reward and punishment, has a lot to
> do with voluntary human conduct.  Are we going to recongnize the deep
> problem of our conduct or we simply want to work at things on the surface
> like law and econ and system?  I am an economic lawyers, specialized in
> economic litigation, so I love the law and econ.  But I also know their
> limit when it comes to human conduct.  Things that start deep in the human
> heart, surface system won't solve.
>
> In that sense, Intel Vietnam's effort plays an incredibly big deal in
> setting the ethical tone for Vietnam's business environment.  I predict that
> many years from now, Intel Vietnam's memorandum on ethics today will be
> mentioned as a milestone in Vietnam's business development in the mopdern
> time.  Of course, this memorandum helps Intel do business easier, but that
> self-interest doesn't take away its siginificant impact on Vietnam's
> environment.
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
>
>
> On 8/15/07, Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov <Hong-Phong_Pho at ita.doc.gov >
> wrote:
>
> > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear anh Hoanh,
> > You can't have it both ways claiming to be a heavy-dosed corporate
> > lawyer and saying that FCPA is not your expertise.
> > When a lawyer doesn't know some part of the law, he does research (or
> > get the paralegal to do it for him).
> > How many cases were successfully prosecuted?  You may also want to find
> > out  about FCPA's exceptions.
> > I am saying that FCPA is not a good law, it is great.  But I think we
> > need to be careful to match principle with action if we wish to avoid being
> > perceived as hypocrites.
> > "Our lawyer told me so or our accountant told me" so are not legal
> > defense.
> > Companies' main goal is to maximize profits.  Being careful not to run
> > afoul of the law does not deviate from that goal if being caught and
> > prosecuted hurt the bottom line.  Otherwise, if the penalty is light,
> > companies will make the conscious decision to brake law and pay the fines.
> >  Its ethical when defined as rules and standards, but not moral principles
> > or values.
> > HPP
> >
> > --
> > Tran Dinh Hoanh, Esq., LLB, JD
> > Washington DC
>
>
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