Hummer, A Moral Dilemma

I recently ran across an amazing editorial by Randy Cohen in the NYTimes. He puts forward the case that GM's sale of Hummer is morally reprehensible. With the US government owning 60 % of the now failed company Cohen believes that we the people can and should stop the sale. He says,

"When the D.E.A. busts a meth house, it doesn't sell captured drug-making equipment to the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Methamphetamine Company, should that outfit inexplicably exist. Unlike crystal meth, the Hummer is legal, but it is hardly benign. (The "curb weight" of the Hummer H2 is at least 6,600 pounds. Fuel efficiency? About 11 m.p.g. in mixed highway-and-city driving.

Determining what products are too hazardous to market fen-phen? bite-size toys? Stinger missiles? should be a matter of public policy, not a series of moral conundrums left to individual companies to resolve. And while it is not the place of government to micromanage a company's lawful operations, it is appropriate for public officials to promote the general welfare; that's the rationale for the G.M. bailout. The collapse of G.M. provides an opportunity to reconsider transportation policy, including from a moral perspective. Such an analysis urges not merely discontinuing the Hummer but also significantly reducing our reliance on the private car."

Cohen's musings add an interesting perspective to the ongoing debates we've seen here on JustMeans. Does government ownership offer new opportunities to inject morality into business? Can business be moral?