Chapter 3 Flashcards
What is corporate crime?
Offenses committed by corporate officials for their corporation and the offenses of the corporation itself
What was one of the first corporations?
East India Company in 1612
What was the South Sea Company?
London in 1711 to engage in slave trade and commerce in South America
How did investors lose large fortunes?
The enterprise was fraudulent, driven by bribery, false financial statements, and stock manipulation
What did the Industrial Revolution do?
Gave rise to immensely powerful and wealthy capitalist corporations, although during this period and into the 20th century relatively little regulation of those enterprises was effective
What were the robber barons involved in?
Every manner of bribery, fraud, stock manipulation, predation against competitors, price gouging, exploitation of labor, and maintenance of unsafe working conditions, but these corporations were largely invulnerable to legal controls
Who helped inspire the Sherman Antitrust Act?
The monopolistic practice of huge trusts (holding companies for a chain of corporations) such as Standard Oil
What are corporations regarded as?
The center piece of a free-market capitalist economy and as a powerful manipulation of entrepreneurial initiative and creativity
What are the important benefactors from corporations?
Large number of charities, public events, institutions of higher learning and scientific enterprises.
What did Karl Marx do?
Regarded the corporation (joint-stock company) as one of the instruments of a capitalist system that exploits and dehumanizes workers and deprives them of a fair return on their labor.
What was Marxist view?
The stockholder is a small-scale capitalist who has lost much control over his capital to those who actually manage the corporations
What is the pathological pursuit of profit?
Some of the large corporations adds up to more than $100 billion a year, with sales exceeding the economies of many countries
What are Oligopolies?
Replacing classical monopolies that were outlawed due to the Sherman Antitrust Act.
What are Conglomerates?
A combination of centrally owned and controlled firms operating in different markets, have also become more common, especially because of multibillion-dollar mergers in the 80’s and 90’s.
What are corporate transgressions?
Harmful although not necessarily illegal actions.
What are the 4 approaches?
- Adopt a typology emphasizing the primary victims (gen. public, consumers, employees)
- Focus on the nature of the harmful activity (violence, corruption)
- Emphasizes the size or scope of the corporate entity (Crimes of transnational crimes)
- Classified corporate crime according to the type of product or service involved (Auto industry, pharmacy)
What are the 4 different ways corporate violence differs from conventional interpersonal violence?
- It is indirect in the sense that victims are not assaulted by another person
- The effects are typically quite removed in time from the implementation of the corporate policy or action that caused the harm, and the casual relationship between the corporate action and the injury to health cannot be clearly and definitively established
- Large number of indiv. acting collectively, rather than a single or very few indiv., are responsible for the actions that result in physical injury or death.
- Motivated by the desire to maximize corporate profits (or survival) and minimize corporate overhead
Toxic Waste: What was the Bhopal case in India?
A massive poisonous chemical cloud was emitted from a Union Carbide plant in December ‘84
How does the water get polluted?
Dumping of toxic wastes by cruise ships
What happened to RC?
Pleaded guilty to routinely dumping toxic waste and paid a fine of $18 million
Air Pollution: What is an example that has generally has unheathful air conditions?
LA
What was the thalidomide case?
Some 8,000 babies whose mother had taken the prescribed tranquilizer during their pregnancies were born grossly deformed in the early ’60s
What was DES?
A drug discovered in the 30’s marketed by Eli Lilly as an effective agent in preventing miscarriages
What did they develop after DES?
Sometimes fatal vaginal and cervical cancer for women and testicular abnormalities and fertility problems for guys
