Discussion Question: Are you shocked by Exxon's behavior discussed in chapter 7?

I am, but I am not surprised. My perspective is informed by the facts that as a DOJ attorney, I prosecuted what can be classified as white collar crime (WCC), and for the past 10 years, I taught a class in WCC for TSU. What is most shocking is that we tolerate it. The most guilty of WCC, those responsible for the most dire WCC consequences, are people in the most privileged positions in our society – the elite. Many of those committing criminal or unethical acts do not regard their behavior as criminal or even ethically wrong. For these elite, there is a notion that the rules don’t apply to them.

One group of criminal theories is social structure theory. These theories posit that the way society is structured influences criminal behavior. Way back in 1956, Sociologist C. Wright Mills proposed that the dominant institutional structures of American life constitute a “power elite” of the largest corporations, the federal government, and the military. Below this group are the corporations that control the mass media. These institutions are headed by elites, people whose positions within organizations have provided them the greatest amount of wealth and power. These elites have great riches and the ability to make decisions that affect the conduct of non-elites. They are drawn disproportionally from society’s upper classes, and control a disproportionate share of the societal institutions industry, commerce, finance, education, the military, communications, civic affairs and law. 

Mills coined the term “higher immorality” to refer behavior of the elite. By that he meant a “moral insensitivity” among the most wealthy and powerful members of the power elite. He argued that this higher immorality translated into a variety of unethical, corrupt, and illegal practices, which were viewed as a systematic, institutionalized feature of contemporary American society. This is what socialists call “elite deviance.”

Mills’s argument was that America is ruled by a power elite. Imagine a pyramid showing where political, social and economic power is distributed in American society. At the top are the leaders of the largest corporations, the federal government, and the military. And just below them are the corporations that control the mass media. By in large, these people come from the same social class, and have a similar outlook on important issues. They attend the same elite prep schools and ivy-league universities. They are members of the same clubs and organizations. They marry each other. These corporate, political, and military worlds are interrelated. Members of the president’s cabinet come from big business, to which they return when their government service ends. Pentagon employees are employed by defense industry firms.

What about the rest of the pyramid? Below the power elite we have a mid-level of power. Here are Congress and other legislators, interest group leaders, and local opinion leaders. At the bottom are us, the masses, unorganized, uninterested, exploited. And a basic way we are exploited is through propaganda served us through advertising, slanted news, social media (especially), and every other way bullshit is dispensed to us every day. .