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When white collar crime is normalized and only lightly punished when very rarely caught... why would anyone expect anything different? White collar crime cause
by otakucode 9y ago
When white collar crime is normalized and only lightly punished when very rarely caught... why would anyone expect anything different? White collar crime causes far more economic damage and kills far more people every year than street crime does and this has been true for decades. But because society focuses on street crime and gives the upper class the benefit of the doubt and punishes them very lightly, white collar crime is normalized. It is very difficult to change a situation like this because taking a behavior which is viewed as normal in a social group and changing it do that it is viewed as deviance is not something we know how to reliably do.
This is a serious problem with no real clear solutions. We know that deterrence does not work, at least not in terms of making larger punishments and assuming that will reflect in fewer people committing the act. Certainty of getting caught is usually effective, but the monitoring of these sorts of markets would need to be done by exactly the people most likely to collude with violators. Until a person busted for insider trading or cutting corners on safety regulations or releasing products are earnestly made to feel ashamed and shunned by their intimate social group, I don't see much hope for change.
- carapace 9y agoI'd say you're seeing the "hope for change" right here. These studies and others like them are shining a light on our hypocrisy. Sometimes it's a single researcher or even an amateur. And then there are the leaks, like the Panama papers, the British Virgin Islands leak, LIBOR scandal, etc.
- marnett 9y agothe status quo is very powerful. unfortunately, things like these don't change - not without revolt.