The rise of employee activism
Passivity in the face of capitalism’s excesses is no better than in response to other injustices.
Walking by an injustice unfolding on the street is an unfortunately common occurrence—the product of an unpleasant human trait known as the ‘bystander effect’. Much of the research in this field has been conducted on instances of public-space injustice, such as ignoring racial slurs or physical violence. Often, it is the result of a ‘diffusion of responsibility’, meaning when others are around, we assume someone else will take action. This behavior has been frequently cited in recent times, calling attention to our responsibilities as citizens in times of heightened cultural tensions over racial, political, gender and ethnic injustices.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
— Desmond Tutu
But everyday across the business world, the bystander effect is in operation. Big tobacco infamously employed ‘the most systematic corporate deceit of all time’, meaning hundreds, possibly thousands, of employees acquiesced in the face of clear injustice on the scale of a global humanitarian crisis. History may be repeating with participants in the vaping industry. What if tobacco executives’ behavior was not an exception, but is the rule in today’s capitalism?
