Why do we hold people and corporations to different standards of behaviour?
Part 2 in a 3-part series on capitalism and corporate behaviour*
The what
Isn’t it crazy how we can tolerate the most intolerable behaviour from companies, but hold ordinary human beings to all but the highest standards of conduct?
For example: If the leader of a cult incites his followers to murder 9 people, he is (justly) incarcerated for life and held up as an example of crimes so heinous that they live on in the collective consciousness beyond his death. But when GM fails to report a fault in its cars, causing 13 deaths, it is fined $35 million and its directors go free. You probably don’t even remember it.
Another example — the almighty Amazon needn’t even ask for your credit card CVV number before taking payment from you, even though that means there’s a fair chance it’s taking your money (no mistake there) with the help of someone else masquerading as you (oops). Meanwhile, if there’s even the slightest chance that you, Jo Soap, received stolen goods and should have known — guess what? Jail time, baby. Fourteen years under the UK Theft Act. (I could have picked any other country — but let’s just say neither the US nor Iraq are likely to be any more lenient with petty criminals needing to…
