Corporate Infamy

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Corporate Infamy

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	Thus even if we design organizations in the belief that most people are basically good and well-intentioned, we have to consider how these good intentions can be mobilized to achieve worthy ends. We cannot take this outcome for granted. > The Algebra of Infamy

The Algebra of Infamy

veryard projects > ethics > corporate infamy > algebra

If infamy followed a simple algebra, major infamy would dominate minor infamy. Small evils would either accumulate to large evils, or dissipate to insignificance. Moral rectification would be proportional to the scale of the infamy.

But we know evil doesn't operate according to this simple algebra.

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.

Even if most people are basically good and well-intentioned, organizations can still be corrupt. (Even in Enron, there were no doubt many sincere, honest and well-intentioned people, who believed they were doing the right things.)

We can try and explain this by identifying a few evil people, but we may not have to resort to this explanation. Complexity Theory yields alternative, richer explanations.

Beyond Simple Explanations
Complexity

Thus even if we design organizations in the belief that most people are basically good and well-intentioned, we have to consider how these good intentions can be mobilized to achieve worthy ends. We cannot take this outcome for granted.

Corruption - Bribery or Seduction

veryard projects > ethics > corporate governance > corruption

Corruption, whether individual or collective, may be self-created (internally generated, emergent), or it may be deliberately fostered by outside agents. Individuals and groups may be vulnerable to various kinds of social attack, leading them into corrupt practices of various kinds.

According to one perspective, the strength of a norm can be measured by how much you must bribe people to violate it. But Elster regards this perspective as incomplete. "Sometimes all one has to offer people is an alternative norm or an alternative description of the targeted action." [In other words, reframing.] "It may be easier to seduce a Communist or a Christian than to bribe him.

Jon Elster, Cement of Society, p 130

Rotten Apple Fallacy

veryard projects > ethics > corporate infamy