For example, towards the end of Falling Free Van Atta finds an old memo in his e-mail with orders to kill the Quaddies: "Item: Post-fetal experimental tissue cultures. Quantity: 1,000. Disposition: cremation by IGS standard biolab rules" (p. 293). Van Atta notices that the order came from "General Accounting and Inventory Control" and was signed by "some unknown middle manager in the GA& IC back on Earth." Van Atta says, "I don't think this twit even knows what Quaddies are." Similarly, non-sensical orders come down all the time in the military, which is organized along corporate lines, from people who know nothing about local situations.
In a large corporation it is difficult to affix moral responsibility on individuals. When scandals erupt (Enron, for example), the CEO will claim he didn't know anything about what was going on. Employees lower in the hierarchy need their incomes, and they may be reluctant to "make waves" when morally reprehensible decisions come down. They don't want to lose their...
When Graf criticizes Dr. Yei for separating Tony and Claire by transferring Tony and giving Claire a "reproductive order" with someone else, she responds: "I didn't invent the Cay Project, and if I were running it, I'd do it differently, but I have to play the hand I'm dealt, Mr. Graf" (p. 72). This implies she doesn't like the policies, but she can't do anything about it. Likewise, at the hearing Apmad claims, "Until Dr. Cay's death brought his department under mine, I had no idea that his 'R & D -- Biologicals' was concealing such enormously invasive manipulations of human genes" (p. 111), and so he passes the buck to a dead man.
During the hearing the reader learns that GalacTec is threatened by a hostile takeover and may lose millions on the Cay project. The fate of the Quaddies, even their possible deaths ("euthanasia"), is discussed entirely in financial terms. When moral problems are brought up, the discussion immediately turns to the legality issues. Just like General Motors…
