It makes me think of something I read in a history class. Have you ever seen the ASME Code of Ethics (http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Governance/3675.pdf) for engineers? Historically, this code, and many like it, were born of the movement by Morris Cooke and the like, sometimes described as the "revolt of the engineers," to insist that the first responsibility of the engineers was to society, not to their bosses.

Morris Cooke lost. The revolt of the engineers only lasted through the first couple decades of the twentieth century. By 1928, engineering schools were already talking about producing "a product which is saleable" to future employers.

Source: "American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870 - 1970", Thomas P. Hughes, University of Chicago Press. And technically, he didn't state it as baldly as I did.