No Shame, No Blame
excerpts from the book
Corporate Predators
by Russel Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Common Courage Press, 1999
One thing that inside-the-beltway corporate liberals and conservatives
agree on is this-crime in America is committed primarily by the
poor and the blacks.
Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist and a corporate
liberal, believes that "young black males commit most of
the crimes in Washington, D.C."
Charles Krauthammer, a Washington Post columnist and a corporate
conservative, has written that "crime is generally an occupation
of the poor."
James Glassman, a corporate libertarian, writes that the rich
"don't commit the violent crimes that require billions to
be spent on law enforcement."
These statements can be considered plausible only if we ignore-as
Cohen, Krauthammer, Glassman and their colleagues in the mainstream
media regularly ignore-the crimes and violence committed by powerful,
large American corporations and their primarily wealthy, non-young-black-male
executives.
Exactly how much damage is inflicted by corporate crime and
violence? Only the criminals, their high-powered lobbyists and
lawyers know for sure. (Robert Bennett, one of the nation's premiere
white-collar crime defense lawyers, has said that "ninety
percent of what I work on never sees the public light of day-and
that should be true of any good white-collar crime defense attorney.")
Every year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issues
its Crime in the United States report which documents murder,
robbery, assault, burglary and other street crimes. The report
ignores corporate and white-collar crimes such as pollution, procurement
fraud, financial fraud, public corruption and occupational homicide.
The FBI does not issue a yearly Corporate Crime in the United
States report, despite strong evidence indicating that corporate
crime and violence inflicts far more damage on society than all
street crime combined.
Much corporate crime and violence goes undetected or unprosecuted
for two reasons.
First, unlike most other criminal groups in the U.S., major
corporations have enough power to define the laws under which
they live.
Second, corporations have enough power to influence prosecutors
not to bring criminal charges.
According to former New York Times reporter David Burnham,
each of the past half-dozen Attorneys General have publicly committed
the Justice Department to a war against white-collar crime. But
as Burnham reports in his book, Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political
Fixes and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice
(Scribner, New York, 1996) the Department doesn't walk the talk.
Burnham finds that less than half of one percent (250) of
the criminal indictments (51,253) brought by the Department in
1994 involved environmental crimes, occupational safety and health
crimes, and crimes involving product and consumer safety issues.
Burnham believes that corporate criminals often get away because
of "unacknowledged class biases, outright political deals,
poorly drafted laws and incompetent investigators" at the
Justice Department.
When it comes to prosecuting white-collar crime cases, Burnham's
judgment is that "the Justice Department itself could be
convicted of fraud."
Despite the built-in advantages corporate criminals have in
staving off judgment day, blatant acts of criminality do slip
through the cracks and are prosecuted.
Forty-six executives were convicted in the "Operation-Ill
Wind" defense procurement fraud enforcement action in the
early 1990s. Six major defense corporations-Cubic, Hazeltine,
Loral, Sperry / Unisys, Teledyne, Whittaker-were convicted in
that operation.
Exxon, International Paper, United Technologies, Weyerhauser,
Pillsbury, Ashland Oil, Texaco, Nabisco and Ralston-Purina have
all been convicted of environmental crimes in recent years.
Yet, despite a growing wave of corporate crime and violence
lapping up over the society, if you ask the average person to
name a crime, he or she most likely will say burglary, robbery,
murder-not pollution, price-fixing or procurement fraud.
Television, of course, plays a major role in shaping this
misperception. If the television crime shows and local news broadcasts,
which now focus overwhelmingly on street crime, gave equal time
to corporate crime and violence, the public perception no doubt
would more accurately reflect reality.
But today, no matter what the topic-America's Most Wanted,
shame or three strikes and you're out-corporate crime and violence
is left out of the conversation by corporatist media elites and
politicians.
This is a prescription for societal rot. As poor Americans
are driven to prison in record numbers for minor drug crimes and
petty burglary, wealthy Americans and their corporations elude
justice for major criminal acts like pollution, corruption, and
ripping off the government. Corporatist politicians like Newt
Gingrich (R-Georgia) believe the time has come to "reestablish
shame as means of enforcing proper behavior."
Who wouldn't agree? But let's start at the top, where the
rot takes hold.
Corporate Predators