Elite: Ch 2Elite Deviance And The Higher Immorality Flashcards
What term did Mills use to describe moral insensitivity?
Higher Immorality to describe among the most wealthy and power members of the US corporate, political and military elite (which he termed the POWER ELITE)
What is A “false front”?
One type of such manipulation by the successful is using a false front: pretending to be interested in what others have to say, attempting to make others feel important, and radiating charm and self-confidence.
What is a dual welfare?
BIG BUSINESSES MAKE PROFIT BY PAYING EMPLOYEES LOW AND THEY ARE ABLE TO MAKE TAX BREAKS
The U.S. system of government has produced what is known as a dual welfare system.
Programs for the poor are termed relief, welfare, assistance , or charity (about $130 Billion/year).
What is corporate welfare?
Programs for the rich, however, are called tax expenditures, subsidies, price supports, parity, and the like (aka: corporate welfare-$448 Billion/year).
•GAP, Inc. - distribution center in Fresno (1997)
•Wal-Mart – low pay results in many employees qualifying and receiving federal assistance ($2.5 billion), yet Wal-Mart receives over $150 million in tax breaks for opening stores.
What is A tax havens’?
COMPANIES MAKE FAKE COMPANIES AND HAVE ACCOUNTS WITH MONEY SO THEY DONT GET TAXED I. THE US
Welfare for the Well-Off:
Tax Breaks
•Multinational corporations take advantage of foreign tax credits. Corporations are setting up “dummy” companies overseas where taxes are less and then pay no taxes on profits in the U.S.
•“Tax havens” in Panama, Liberia, Liechtenstein and the Cayman Islands are common places corporations set up “shell companies”.
•Panama Papers (millions of leak documents) and Cayman Islands stories.
•“Shell companies” were used for illegal purposes, including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion, and evading international sanctions.
What is asset depletion?
Ex: buying a new car and as soon As you leave the car dealership, your car loses value!
Over half the benefits from asset depletion go to the largest 103 U.S. manufacturing corporations. This tax law makes an allowance for wear and tear on equipment by allowing a depreciation deduction. In reality, there is no way of knowing how long a piece of equipment will last; it merely depends on how quickly a given company decides to replace it.
•Banks that make “bad” loads can deduct those bad debts from their taxes.
•Corporations that lose law suits, often deduct the payments/costs from their profits when reporting annual income for tax purposes.
What is “crisis”?
Crisis is a bankrupted term because so many men in high places have evoked it to cover up their extraordinary policies and deeds. As a matter of fact, it is precisely the absence of genuine crisis that has beset our morality, for such crises involve situations in which men are presented with genuine alternatives, the meanings/choices made are clearly open to public debate. Our higher immorality and general weakening of older values have not involved such crises.
What is an antitrust law?
Mills believed that much corporate crime results because it is often good business to break the law. As he said, businesses “obey these laws, when they do, not because they feel that it is morally right, but because they are afraid of being caught.”
•Therefore, such laws “exist without the support of firm moral conviction. It is merely illegal to cheat them, but it is often considered smart to get away with it.”
•Antitrust laws have also been viewed as a “low priority” by several past presidential administrations (Reagan-Bush, George Bush and Bill Clinton).
What is organized crime?
Simon defined organized crime as an integral part of the American social system that brings together:
- a public that demands certain goods and services that are defined as illegal (drugs or prostitution for example).
- an organization of individuals who produce or supply those goods and services (gangs and mafia types).
- corrupt public officials who protect such individuals for their own profit or gain.
1.Mafia figures were used by businesses and politicians to quell/repress labor in 1930-40’s.
2.CIA use of organized criminal elements (mafia) in the 1960’s against Cuba and Fidel Castro. Along with others in Latin America and South East Asia.
3.See film “Killing the messenger”. CIA and cocaine trafficking in the 1980’s.
4.Vatican Bank Scandal.
