The American national character was formed on the idea of labor and its result - material success, and this required such qualities as energy and the ability to generate new ideas, new methods, the ability to overcome outdated norms, courage in violating generally accepted prohibitions, overcoming all physical and practical borders, the search for new unexplored paths, the courage of a pioneer. These same qualities of a national character are the reason for the high crime rate in the United States.
“Crime in our country has a functional role, and is viewed by society not as an antisocial act, but as a business in another way, the shortest path to wealth,” wrote Daniel Bell, the country's leading sociologist in the 60s and 70s, in his book Crime is the American way of life ,
Crime is the American way of life
Crime exists in all social systems, but its specificity and scope are determined by the dominant cultural values and social goals in society.
Crime in America, at all times, differed from European in its scale, diversity and was the result of democratic and economic freedoms, enormous social dynamics. Society set a single goal - wealth, in the struggle for it many millions of masses took part, which could not but lead the most energetic and capable of overcoming all barriers to the search for roundabout, roundabout ways. Legal and moral laws have always been violated, and have always been condemned as the degradation of man, as a betrayal of the sacred norms of life.
But, by the middle of the 19th century, the crime in the eyes of public opinion began to be assessed differently. At this time, a capitalist society began to form, in which the economy began to occupy a central place in the scale of social values. In the literature of the pre-capitalist era, crime was perceived as an individual choice experienced by the hero as a tragedy. In the 20th century, crime ceased to be a personal choice, it lost its tragic features. Both in life and in literature, crime has become an everyday social phenomenon, one of the ways to solve life problems and, above all, economic problems.
Theodore Dreiser in his novels - "Titan", "Genius", "The Financier", shows the hero, Cowperwood, who transcends all ethical, moral legal laws, but all this is fully justified by "Delo". An honest path is long and not very effective. "Society is divided into slaves who live according to the principles of slave morality, and those who are able to transcend morality are those who are able to create wealth and know how to rule." - Dreiser wrote in 1913, - "The lot of the weak defeat. Unlike the strong, they are afraid of public opinion. They are too cowardly to risk taking someone else's. They call criminals those who seek power and wealth. Millionaires, gangsters, and crooks succeed because they fight and therefore win."
Dreiser's statement may seem like an exaggeration, Dreiser is a writer, and literature always uses exaggeration as a professional device, but this is, in almost the same terms, said by a practitioner who has completed only four classes of a church school, who has not read a single book in his life. Luigi (Lucky) Luciano, boss of the mafia bosses of the 30s - 40s, “Everyone would like to take something away from others, but most of them lack courage. We, the Mafia, have it.”The classic of literature and the“titan”of the American underworld, like Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov, divide the world into heroes and“trembling creatures”.
Promotional video:
If we follow Dostoevsky's idea that one cannot shed a “tear of a child”, then Progress must be canceled. The world of materialistic civilization is being built on millions of “tears.” “The country gives you a choice - either you are robbed, or you are robbed.” Said Barnum, the creator of America's most famous circus and exhibitions of wonders of the world. Another famous phrase of Barnum - “There′sa sucker born every minute” - has no less meaning today than it was 100 years ago when it was uttered.
You are either “sucker” - a fool or “swindler”, “sharpie” - sharp, resourceful, the one who cuts the soles on the move, is able to lead everyone around his finger. Turchaninov, Colonel of the General Staff of the Russian Army, who immigrated to America in 1856, who became a brigadier general in the Army of the North during the Civil War, - “Smart guy, in our opinion a dodger, a rogue, is a great word here. Be a person the greatest villain, in any class of the estate, if he did not get to the gallows, then he is respectable. They take care of him, his opinion is the first in everything, his judgments and sentence are believed more than the Bible."
The very concept of deception and manipulation underlies the culture of a market society. As Cicero said, “The market is the vocation of those who buy in order to resell at a higher price, and they cannot do it without insolent and shameless deception.” Engels called economics a form of permissible deception. In a feudal society, wealth was acquired by violence, market democracy offered more civilized forms - deception built on persuasion.
“The whole life of a market society is built on gaining trust in business, political and individual life. Success in all social spheres is won only by those who have the ability to persuade, the ability to sell their goods and their ideas. Sociologist James Combs. The main tool of belief is language, and it reflects the priority of certain qualities of relations between people in a given culture, often just in the number of words used. American English has more terms for different types of cheaters and tricks than other languages in the world - frauds, charlatans, deceivers, dissemblers, tricksters, swindlers, mountebanks, impostors, hoaxers, fixers, cheats, pretenders, cynics, hypocrites, hoodwinkers, four? flushers, bunk, baloney, buncombe, sham, shilling, bamboozle, him? hamming, chisel, welsh,snake oil, bluffing, a bum steer, rook, flummox, selling a bill of goods, the put? on, a raw deal, diddling, swindling, the snow job, the come? on, the gambit, the royal shaft, the set ? up, being fleeced, getting burned, the ream job, conning.
Most of these terms are untranslatable, they reflect the specifics of business and human relations, characteristic only of American culture, and the breadth of terminology speaks of the prevalence and sophistication of deception. Harry Linberg, in his work "The Confidence Man in American Literature"”, Shows that American culture has created a specific form of genius - the genius of the deceiver. This social type sees society as a bunch of suckers, whom he can convince of his concern for their well-being and, thus, at someone else's expense, create his own well-being. On the one hand, what kind of reasonable person will act against his own interests, on the other hand, in every person there is a desire to believe. We don't always trust our own feelings and beliefs,and are willing to trust those whose beliefs are more logical and emotionally more intense than ours.
The manipulator does not necessarily use open deception, more often he uses the logic of evidence and emotional pressure. In the first half of the twentieth century, only a thin layer of the population, businessmen, capitalists, financiers, owned the technique of manipulation. In the second half of the twentieth century, with the involvement of the masses in the economic process, all social strata began to master the technique of manipulation. Everyone, to one degree or another, has become businessmen, capitalists, financiers - they play on the stock exchange, invest free money in businesses, participate in various forms of business relations, and in them the most important thing is the ability to persuade, the ability to buy cheaper, sell more expensive.
Naturally, in the atmosphere of the market society, the “Confidence man”, the crook, has become the dominant social type. On the public scale of prestige, fraudsters who have achieved significant success by clever deception have traditionally ranked very high. The ability to sell a product that no one in their right mind will buy, the ability to sell everything, even that which cannot be sold, requires active creativity. Selling, in a broad social sense, requires sophisticated ingenuity, and the very qualities of a salesman-manipulator are the most respected in society. No wonder, in Greek mythology, the patron saint of creative professions, Mercury, was the god of all arts, including trade and theft. America has always been a country of a creative approach to all problems, has always looked and found new, unprecedented ways and, above all, in creating wealth,no wonder it was called the land of unlimited opportunity, “land of unlimited opportunity”.
According to the sociologist Emil Durkheim, if the possibilities are endless, if “Sky is the limit”, the limit is only heaven, then the limitations, practical and moral barriers can be overcome. The specific past of America, civilization was created in the conditions of pristine nature, the first colonists were surrounded by wild forests, they were attacked by wild animals and aborigines, formed a characteristic approach to solving problems - the shortest and easiest way is being sought. The conquest of a new continent required immediate decisions, practicality in achieving the goal.
Surrounded by pristine nature, the American colonist had to forget about morality, the moralist did not survive in the struggle with nature. Morality is the result of the development of civilization, and is not applicable outside of civilization. An act is right when it leads to survival, and wrong when it endangers life, there was simply no time for moral reminiscences. The process of development of capitalism, on the one hand, created a new world of a ramified civilization, opposing nature in its material embodiment and, at the same time, returning human society to those forms of relations that existed in nature - the struggle for survival in which the strongest wins.
The competitive environment required a creative approach and instant decisions, criminal and moral laws made it difficult to achieve the goal, so crime, as an instrument of the business process, became an organic feature of the new society. Henry Thoreau: “Forced to rely only on himself, the American defines his freedom as independence from law and tradition. The American accepts the law when he is on his side and rejects it if he is against it. Only he himself decides what is fair and what is not."
The economic freedom that democratic capitalism provided to the masses has opened all the floodgates for the creative energy of the people, and this energy sweeps away all barriers in its path, outdated traditions and moral norms. This is a struggle of all against all, and those who are able to find the shortest path to success, who are able to break the rules of the game, a game with a high level of risk, win in it. The explosion of crime in post-Soviet Russia, when unprecedented opportunities for individual entrepreneurship appeared.
The first Russian entrepreneurs were those who had criminal experience, experience of acquiring wealth in high-risk conditions. The criminal world was better adapted to the business game than the general population, accustomed by the Soviet government to economic and social passivity. In a stable economy, legal businesses resort to breaking the law only in extreme cases. In the absence of stability, as happened with the emergence of the free market in the former Soviet Union, in the context of a crumbling political and economic structure, individual entrepreneurship chose the easiest way to achieve the goal - ignoring all laws. Deception, fraud and murder have become the main means of concentration of wealth in Russia, revealing the basic principles of business in a competitive environment. And it is natural that criminalsthe most active part of the population, became the vanguard of the development of capitalism in Russia, business requires the ability to take risks.
A business without risk can exist only in frozen bureaucratic, state forms, and, as a rule, is not very effective. In today's West, crimes in the economy do not look as monstrous as in Russia, bureaucratized corporations have developed a multi-stage system of concealing the mechanism of economic manipulation, it is not visible behind the complex civilized rituals created over two centuries of market relations.
“There are endless reminders from the press about illegal operations in Russia. But economic crimes in Russia look like naive provincialism, in comparison with the refined stylistics of the gigantic fraud of the Western commercial world … This is the most obvious advantage of Western civilization over Russia. Westerners receive ample training in business rationalization and respect for the law. He will not fool anyone over little things. Little deception is not productive. Before committing an illegal transaction, a Western businessman consults with a lawyer, and generally tries to stay within the boundaries of the law, which, with the help of an experienced lawyer, always works in his favor. Russians do not have centuries-old business practices. Therefore, a Russian businessman, committing exactly the same illegal operation as his Western counterpart,does it unprofessionally, i.e. rude and vulgar. He is not even concerned with hiding his tracks, and is short-sighted and blunt enough to deceive even where it is not absolutely necessary. The Russian does not have that artistry, inner discipline and the experience of deceiving for many centuries that a Western businessman has. The Russian acts impulsively, spontaneously, in a barbaric manner. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater. He is not even concerned with hiding his tracks, and is short-sighted and blunt enough to deceive even where it is not absolutely necessary. The Russian does not have that artistry, inner discipline and the experience of deceiving for many centuries that a Western businessman has. The Russian acts impulsively, spontaneously, in a barbaric manner. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater. He is not even concerned with hiding his tracks, and is short-sighted and blunt enough to deceive even where it is not absolutely necessary. The Russian does not have that artistry, inner discipline and the experience of deceiving for many centuries that a Western businessman has. The Russian acts impulsively, spontaneously, in a barbaric manner. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater.where this is not absolutely necessary. The Russian does not have that artistry, inner discipline and the experience of deceiving for many centuries that a Western businessman has. The Russian acts impulsively, spontaneously, in a barbaric manner. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater.where this is not absolutely necessary. The Russian does not have that artistry, inner discipline and the experience of deceiving for many centuries that a Western businessman has. The Russian acts impulsively, spontaneously, in a barbaric manner. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater. Russians are not more likely to commit crimes, but more obvious. It is carried out in the most unpretentious and blatant uncivilized forms, and this cannot but cause a fierce protest from the West. Unable to wear the intricate fancy dress of decency that the West has worked on for centuries, the Russians, in their naive ignorance, are opening up the very mechanism of business for everyone to see. " Sociologist Phillip Slater.
In the 90s of the twentieth century, Russia repeated the American path. In the USA, in the 19th century, in the early period of the industrial economy, overt mutual cheating in business, without the masquerade of decency, was also the generally accepted rule. The bureaucratic structure of business was still being created, economic legislation did not exist, which allowed using any form of creative approach, therefore, deception among the business elite was frank and arrogant.
John Pierrepoint Morgan, the creator of the American banking system, who knew, more than anyone else, the psychology of business people, said, “I treat people with respect, everyone without exception, but as for business people, in their company I would did not leave his wristwatch unattended."
The country's economic elite at the time of Morgan was not numerous and amounted to no more than several tens of thousands. In the post-industrial era, the masses were involved in the business process as its active participants, and violation of laws became a mass phenomenon. Everyone is looking for a shortcut, an opportunity to circumvent the law in their field of activity - this increases the efficiency of any business. Legal and moral laws restrain the dynamics of development, and business, in search of the shortest road, goes around the rules, laws and morality.
Sociologist James Combe sees American business culture as The Culture of Deception, which is the title of his book. In his opinion, popular capitalism could not but lead to the popularization of business practices and techniques previously characteristic only of a narrow circle of "titans", "financiers" and "geniuses" - "mutual manipulation and deception have become the ethical and procedural norm of our culture." Sociology, like literature, uses generalizations and often exaggerates in order to more effectively prove its theses. But here is an example from the practice of the business world: Jimmy Sullivan, a member of the Directorate of the New York Department of School Education, who stole millions from the city treasury, in his acquittal in court made the following argument: “Everyone steals from someone, and this is not a violation of the rule - this rule is. This is 95%. Someone steals a little, someone more. However, we have always been a nationwhere gangsters and crooks were exalted to the skies. This is part of the American Dream."
The tradition of deceit, manipulation and deception, and creative problem-solving has been a characteristic feature of American life since the early years of the British colonies. The first known con artist in American history was Captain Samuel Argall, appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Virginia Colony in 1616. Two years later, he captured everything that belonged to the community and fled, leaving six goats from all the community wealth. Everything that could be taken out, he loaded onto his ship, and sold in England at a great profit. Having paid for the services of lawyers with part of his booty, he was able not only to get away from court, but by giving bribes to the right people, received the title of peerage for his services in the development of new territories in America, and was appointed the representative of the British crown to the Council of American Colonies.
John Hancock, the organizer of the Boston Tea Party that started the American Revolution, amassed enormous wealth by supplying the colony with smuggled goods. The creators of the American constitution, Robert Morris and James Wilson, who served on the nine-person Constitutional Court, were involved in a gigantic sale of non-existent land. Government officials have always been active participants in the business process. In 1789, the financier Henry Beekman paid the City of New York £ 25 for 23 miles of land, the entire west coast of Manhattan Island. Then this piece of public land, having appeared on the public sale, could cost £ 5,000. The amount of the bribe given to municipal officials remains unknown. One of the streets of Wall Street today bears the name of the financier Beekman, Beekman Street.
The financial genius and patriot of America, Cornelius Vanderbilt, during the Civil War, sold to the North several dozen ships that were scrapped. He bought them before the start of the war, anticipating the possible demand in the event of a military conflict. Due to the fact that the government badly needed to increase its navy, and there was no time to build new ships, Vanderbilt sold the old vessels at the price of new ones, and, when checking their running characteristics, they sank. Naturally, he could not have closed this deal without the help of friends in the Congressional Purchasing Commission. Tammany Hall is the name of a group of politicians and businessmen who bought and sold public appointments, enacted laws beneficial only to big business, in New York in the early 20th century.
Tammany Hall in American history has become a symbol of the limit of political corruption. The head of Tammany Hall, Boss Plunkett, said the historic phrase, “When I see opportunities that open up, I take them.” (I've seen my opportunities, and I took them!). Mister Plunket, having left his post, nevertheless remained in the people's memory as a master of his craft, a master of political and economic games.
The Scandinavian playwright Knut Hamsun, who visited the United States around the same time, - “The public looks at major scams with sympathy and often with admiration. The ability to deceive on a large scale in the eyes of the public looks like an expression of ingenuity, a characteristic feature of the Yankees, and the press with tenderness describes the technical details of the scam and admires the accuracy, jewelry of the work of the scammers."
Charles Dickens, after his travels in the United States, wrote in his American Notes in 1842, -. “They have a high esteem for the skill of cleverly handling things … and it allows any rogues who should be hanged on the gallows, to keep their heads high, on a par with decent people. More than once I had to conduct such a conversation: “Isn't it a shame that a name is making his fortune in the most dishonorable way, and his fellow citizens endure and encourage him, despite all the crimes he has committed. After all, he disgraces society! Yes, sir. He's an admitted liar! Yes, sir. A completely dishonest, low, dissolute type! Yes, sir. For heaven's sake, why do you respect him then? You see sir, he's a shrewd, smart guy. Shrewd, the smart guy of today is also universally respected, and as in the days of Dickens, dominates public life.
1975 year. Election Campaign in Miami. Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter speaking at a banquet to big business. Entrance ticket - $ 1,000. Carter explains the main slogan of his campaign program - honest government. Sitting next to him on the podium are the Mayor of Miami, who has just served a sentence for tax evasion, two senators from Florida, who are currently on trial for pushing a law on benefits in areas representing their personal business interests, the head of one of the ministries, on trial for accepting bribes; and 3 representatives of other ministries accused of embezzling public funds.
Countless scandals related to deceit and fraud often appear in the American press as a violation of generally accepted rules, as a deviation from the norm. But manipulations and scams are an organic, integral part of the business game. When, in 1938, air mail fraud and price manipulation reached such proportions that the government was forced to close all air campaigns involved in the scam, US Chamber of Commerce Chairman Willie Rogers issued the following statement - “If we shut down any or the industry in connection with fraud and scams, then we will have to stop the entire economy of the country."
But scandals in the field of politics and big business are characteristic not only of America, with constant constancy they occur in European countries. The difference is in scope, scale. Scale is a New World specific, visible in the very nature of the United States, in its architecture and also in the scope of crime. In 1949, a meeting of representatives of the occupation forces in Germany was held. One issue was on the agenda - the robbery of warehouses in the Allied armies. The main participants in the robberies were American soldiers and officers of all ranks, however, American representatives were offended by the fact that only US military personnel were to blame, recalling that not only Americans, but also the French and British were stealing. The representative of France made the following argument, which seemed irrefutable,“What will the French soldier steal? A block or two of cigarettes (cigarettes were used as a form of currency in post-war Europe). What will an American soldier steal? He will hijack an entire train, involve not only soldiers, but also officers in his business, bribe a train crew, charter dozens of trucks, and create a distribution network. “This is no longer theft, but a big, well-organized business,” a spokesman for the American occupation forces told him.
Post-war America has become the economic leader of the Western world and a leader in all types of crime for all classes of American society. Along with the growth of the economy, so did crime. Since the beginning of the 1950s, the per capita national product has tripled. Over the same 50 years, crime in the economy has increased 5 times. People are more afraid of individual crime than organized crime. A robbery, on the street or in the house, with its suddenness and concreteness, is engraved in the memory.
The robbery of millions over the years by banks, insurance companies, corporations, or as a result of stock market manipulations, goes without any drama, although the effect and scale of organized robbery is incomparable with a petty, in monetary terms, street robbery. You can lose money, some part of your property as a result of robbery, but you will not lose everything that you have accumulated during your life. Organized robbery by corporations will turn you into a beggar.
Unlike individual crime, corporate crime is committed by an organization. Corporate crimes are commonly referred to as “white collar crime”. The term seems to suggest that the crimes are committed by individual employees of corporations. But white-collar crime differs from individual, street crime by the huge sums it manipulates, and this is possible only when using the human and technological resources that only an organization can provide. Individual initiative can bring only crumbs. Therefore, the correct term is the one that is used in relation to the mafia - “organized crime”. No wonder, in everyday speech, large corporations are called the oil workers 'mafia, the doctors' mafia, the trade union mafia. The grandiose scams of the last decades have made the names of financiers Ivan Boevski, Michael Milken, Charles Kitting world famous. Before their arrest, the American press presented these names as models of scientific management, they were called financial geniuses, titans of Big Business, they were admired by millions. They were, indeed, talented organizers of the work of the huge apparatus of corporations, and thousands of ordinary workers participated in carrying out gigantic scams, which made it possible to rob the public on a grand scale. When Michael Milken was asked at the trial why he deceived not only millions of depositors, but also his closest friends, he replied, “If I don’t make money from my friends, who will I make it with”.as models of scientific management, they were called financial geniuses, titans of Big Business, they were admired by millions. They were, indeed, talented organizers of the work of the huge apparatus of corporations, and thousands of ordinary workers participated in carrying out gigantic scams, which made it possible to rob the public on a grand scale. When Michael Milken was asked at the trial why he deceived not only millions of investors, but also his closest friends, he replied, “If I don’t make money on my friends, who will I make it on”.as models of scientific management, they were called financial geniuses, titans of Big Business, they were admired by millions. They were, indeed, talented organizers of the work of the huge apparatus of corporations, and thousands of ordinary workers participated in carrying out gigantic scams, which made it possible to rob the public on a grand scale. When Michael Milken was asked at the trial why he deceived not only millions of investors, but also his closest friends, he replied, “If I don’t make money on my friends, who will I make it on”.which made it possible to rob the public on a grand scale. When Michael Milken was asked at the trial why he deceived not only millions of investors, but also his closest friends, he replied, “If I don’t make money on my friends, who will I make it on”.which made it possible to rob the public on a grand scale. When Michael Milken was asked at the trial why he deceived not only millions of investors, but also his closest friends, he replied, “If I don’t make money on my friends, who will I make it on”.
For a true businessman, not only the nameless public, but also his relatives and friends, is also a means of enrichment. One cannot expect any loyalty from him in relation to specific people - he faithfully serves only the Cause. Milken's 1986 income was $ 296 million. In 1987, his earnings were 550 million. As a result of Milken's scams, hundreds of thousands have lost their savings, many have lost their jobs. Michael Milken received a prison sentence for his illegal manipulations on the stock exchange, was also condemned by public opinion. During the trial of Michael Milken, an ironic song became popular: I cheated, I cheated everyone. And you are probably angry. And I'm happy as a fox in someone else's barn. Wall Street is my home. And you probably sold yours. Students at the Pennsylvania State University business school wrote a tease song about the same thing: I cheat, I cheat, I cheat. And proudly cry like a rooster. You have lost, and I have gained. You have nothing to live on. I don't give a damn, I'll be joking. After graduation, students from the University of Pennsylvania School of Business will start working in large corporations, and, naturally, leave behind their youthful maximalism. The very logic of the work of corporations will force them to obey the general rules of the game. Many universities include a “business ethics course” as a compulsory curriculum, but can a wolf be taught to eat vegetables?Many universities include a “business ethics course” as a compulsory curriculum, but can a wolf be taught to eat vegetables?Many universities include a “business ethics course” as a compulsory curriculum, but can a wolf be taught to eat vegetables?
As the author of the acclaimed book Why We Behave Like Americans writes, - If any naive representative of the corporate nomenclature is honest in the literal sense of the word, he will inevitably be out of the gate. Ordinary employees of a corporation, involved in the machinations of their campaign, participating in deception and manipulation of their employer, accept them as inevitable, to protest against immoral campaign tactics means to be thrown out of the gate and be blacklisted, all doors of other corporations will be closed. Who wants to be a hero? Even close people and friends will call your act idiocy. And, really, do not consider yourself better than others, be like everyone else - after all, this is a natural form of doing business, do not try to remake the world."
As Michael Cousin, professor of history at the American University in Washington, writes, “Today, with most corporate employees holding shares in their employers and, in one way or another, involved in the machinations of their campaigns, everyone is immune to widespread deception. Our economy is becoming more and more democratized, with a large part of the population taking an active part in it. Everyone who owns even a minimal number of shares, and today there are more than 60 million shareholders, feels like a participant in a gambling game in which manipulation at the card table is an obligatory part of the process."
Of course, you can create your own business and try to be honest in it, but morality is good for relationships with loved ones, and in business, by definition, there is only a moral of success. In the past decade, scams have become more and more widespread - the economy is growing, and as it grows, so does the scope for fraud. But to carry them out, you need to assure the public of the purity and integrity of the corporation, you need to create a base of trust, just like any ordinary “conman”, a fraudster does. The leaders of the economy have a high social prestige - they serve society, creating wealth, and the lack of morality, like a pickpocket, the only difference is in their high professionalism and the number of pockets they get into. Over the past 5 years, 22 of the country's largest corporations have been put on trial, including Enron, Xerox, Haliburton, Aol, Time Warner,Kmart, WorldCom. Their leaders in two years (1999-2001) received salaries totaling $ 15 billion, while their campaigns lost $ 500 billion in value. This is the amount that depositors, shareholders and consumers have lost. In addition to economic crime, there is another area of business in which corporations receive huge profits - refusal to comply with laws on the protection of labor and consumer health.in which corporations make huge profits - failure to comply with health and safety laws.in which corporations make huge profits - failure to comply with health and safety laws.
This type of crime does not belong to the category of criminal offenses, they are qualified as a violation of civil laws. If the employer obliges the employee to function in conditions in which chemicals hazardous to life and health are used, if he refuses to work, he will be fired, and if the conditions are accepted, he will die, then the employer is not considered a murderer and is not subject to criminal prosecution. 25 thousand people die every year in factories as a result of the use of defective equipment and violations of labor protection laws. A significantly larger number of victims are consumers of low-quality goods. The pharmaceutical industry is a huge industry generating $ 200 billion a year. On account of her thousands of human tragedies - 100 thousand cases of newborn defects in those motherswho took the medicine Benedictin, which relieves nausea in women in labor. Sleep pills, Halston, brought 240 million to the Upjohn campaign and more than 200,000 patients who took Halston had memory problems, and experienced various forms of paranoid behavior and suicidal tendencies. But records have traditionally been set by the automotive industry. One of the most famous facts is the history of the Ford Pinto model. More than 500 buyers of this model were burned in their cars - the result of a structural defect in the gas tank. Campaign managers could remove the model from sales and redesign the gas tank. But the Pinto continued to be widely advertised as the most successful model of recent times. Internal document of the 1989 General Motors campaign,“A flaw in the gasoline tank of campaign vehicles resulted in 500 fatalities in collision. Compensation was $ 200,000 for the family of the victims. The number of campaign vehicles nationwide is 41 million. By dividing the total amount of compensation by the number of vehicles, the company's expenses for each incident are expressed in $ 2.5. Fixing the defect will cost the campaign nearly four times as much - $ 8.5 per vehicle.”
As railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt said in the late 19th century, after press accusations that his corporation was eliminating competitors by causing fatal train accidents on their lines, “We are not in this business to serve society., we are in it because it brings a lot of money. In those good old days, business was outspoken in defining its tasks, nowadays large corporations are forced to mask their true goals with the slogan of serving the public interest.
Breaking the law is the most productive practice of wealth creation, and businesses are taking full advantage of this richest resource. The indignation of the public, in this regard, is only a tribute to emotions; in his life practice, everyone follows the same rules by which Big Business lives. The average worker has the same code of practice as the corporation for which he works. The corporation does not, and cannot have, responsibility to the entire society; neither does the employee of the corporation. The employee does not bear any responsibility to society, he is above all a professional, for him there is only responsibility for the work that he does.
In The Bridge on the River Kwai, Captain Nicholson, a military engineer, a high-class professional, imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, proudly fulfills the task of the Japanese to build a bridge in the impenetrable jungle, and does what seems impossible. In the name of the cause, he spares neither himself nor the mortally emaciated English soldiers. The bridge is built. Through it the Japanese will transfer military units and equipment, and will destroy the outposts of the British army, which were unattainable for the Japanese before the bridge existed. Captain Nicholson's story is the story of a true professional, but since it takes place in extreme conditions, the experience is shocking. Under normal conditions, this position is not condemnable.
The hero of the film Risky Business, Risky Business, played by Cruise, can also be called a professional, a budding professional, he is the son of wealthy parents who dream that their son will go to Princeton University business school. The hero of Cruz, at the moment when the parents went on vacation, arranges a brothel in the house for the students of the school in which he studies, and conducts titanic work to create a new business - sexual service, and acts like a true professional. His venture proves to be extremely successful due to the research of market demands, customer characteristics and accounting details. A Princeton University official who shows up at Cruise's parents' home to test a candidate for study at a prestigious business school catches the applicant in the process of doing business.and its effectiveness is so impressive to the recruiter that he no doubt hands the university admission document to the budding businessman.
In another Cruise film, "Firm," the character, a law school graduate, starts working in a law firm serving the mafia. The firm helps mafia bosses to launder dirty money. As one of the firm's executives, Cruise's mentor, says, “being a tax lawyer has nothing to do with the law? it′sa game.”, a lawyer has nothing to do with the law, this is a game of chance. Any business is a game, and in a game there are only rules, morality belongs to another category, say, philanthropy, which, however, is also big business.
Perhaps the film reflects the modern decline in morality, but morality was at the same level 100 years ago. An advertisement for a lawyer in a late 19th century Arizona newspaper, “If you are on trial or on trial, then I am the person to help you. If you are credited with extortion, robbery, deliberate arson - you have nothing to fear behind my back. I rarely fail. Of the eleven murderers, I managed to acquit nine. Come early and you will avoid waiting in line. " An advertisement for a 19th century lawyer today looks like a curiosity, for a century and a half lawyers have learned a civilized form of attracting clients, outright cynicism is condemned today, it is unprofitable, and, at the same time, there is a gradual return to the most cynical forms of deception in the whole society. As lawyers who find loopholes in the legislation for their clients say, “It is, of course, immoral,but completely legal."
The lower classes, feeling deceived because the wealth of the elite is created by their minimum paid labor, also consider themselves entitled to break the law that is lenient towards the rich. The lower classes, breaking the law, can say - "This is certainly illegal, but it is completely moral." Thus, all classes have excuses, breaking the law, nobody believes in the rules of fair play. True, corporations receive, thanks to their creative approach to the law, hundreds of billions of dollars, and uncreative, direct, individual violation of the law in the country as a whole, according to 2000 statistics, brings no more than 6 billion. The facts about the business practices of big business become known only in times of high-profile scandals, and then disappear from the pages of the press and TV screens. But the media report on individual crimes every day,on the front pages of newspapers, television devotes most of the news programs to them.
Street crime statistics are constantly being collected, and they show the extent of crime in which the United States is leading among other industrialized countries. The number of robberies per capita in America is 5 times more than in Europe. The death toll per capita in the United States in 2000 was 10 times that of England. There is a widespread belief that most crimes are committed by new immigrants and this is largely supported by statistics. “It is generally accepted that new immigrants bring a wave of crime from their countries to the New World. But most of the immigrants were law-abiding in their countries. If they break the law, it is mainly due to the general conditions of life and the moral atmosphere of their new country. Lawlessness was and is the most characteristic quality of American life. John Adams Truslow,a descendant of the Adams family, which gave the country two presidents and several of the country's prominent political leaders.
The same pattern was noted by the criminologist Suzerland in the 30s. Investigating the causes of crime in Honolulu, he found that the Japanese community, living a closed life within its ethnic ghetto, has the lowest crime rate. Where the Japanese lived and worked, mingling with the general population, the crime rate was highest. From the mid-19th century to the present day, America has absorbed 54 million immigrants.
The most successful among them were those ethnic groups that were able to create their own organizations - trade unions, business unions and mafia "families". Mafia groups - Italians, Irish, Jews, and later the Vietnamese, Chinese, Dominican and Mexican mafias - differed from all other legal immigrant associations in that they gave immigrants significantly greater opportunities for economic growth.
Immigrants, being the object of merciless exploitation and the subject of mistrust and humiliation on the part of the native inhabitants of the country, saw in the American laws legalizing the violation of their civil rights as their enemy, and in the mafia as a defender. Immigrants preferred the godfathers arbitration court to the official American court. The Mafia, instead of the soulless and often addicted to immigrant American courts and police, offered a "family approach." The Mafia distributed jobs and, in some cases, organized assistance to the sick and the poor. This was not philanthropy. The Mafia thus created massive support in their immigrant ghettos. The immigrant alone was deprived of the opportunity to use the advantages of American democracy - personal freedom, high social mobility, and the weakness of the state. The mafia, on the other hand, could effectively take advantage of the free market and civil liberties because it had power and influence - it was an organization in whose hands huge amounts of money were accumulated, the most powerful tool of business.
Legal organizations of immigrants, as a rule, were ineffective; they existed on meager sums in the form of membership fees. For the immigrant mafias, large corporations were models for doing business, using the same organizational techniques to accumulate wealth, they created powerful crime syndicates with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
In the film The Godfather, the head of the Italian Mafia, Carleone, explains to his associates that the Mafia (its Italian name is Cosa Nostra - Our Business) is not a gang of street thieves - it is a service business that the consumer cannot get through legal channels … The public wants sex, free access to which is prohibited by law. She will get it. Instant receipt of cash loans, bypassing the protracted bureaucratic procedure of the bank, of course, at huge interest rates. Returning debts with a fist and a gun, bypassing many years and often fruitless lawsuits. There is a need to remove an enemy, a competitor, an unwanted witness. Only here a consumer can get everything that he cannot get through legal channels. The business of the Carleone family is a specific business.
But Italian immigrants, like many other ethnic minorities, were not allowed to do legal business, more precisely, in those areas of business where a lot of money is made legally. Carleone corporation management analyzes the efficiency and productivity of investment and labor, and does so with the same care and professionalism as any other corporation. True, the Mafia has a different code of honor and somewhat different rules of the game than in a legitimate business. But playing by generally accepted rules has not been common in society as a whole, from the time of Henry Thoreau to this day. “The American accepts the law when he is on his side and rejects it if he is against. Only he himself decides what is fair and what is not. The Godfather shows Italian families fleeing their country from violence, corruption and exploitation. In their country,there was no way to rise from the social bottom, as the immobile social structure of 19th century Italy secured all privileges for the landlord class, including the Sicilian mafia, which protected the interests of the large landowners. In the new country, despite the fact that immigrants fall to the same social bottom, they nevertheless have a chance to take advantage of the opportunities for freedom of individual entrepreneurship and the most energetic, ambitious, and capable of taking risks choose criminal forms of business, because they provide the shortest path to economic success. In the Middle Ages, the lower classes saw in robbers, as, for example, in Robin Hood, a force, to some extent, restoring social justice.as the immobile social structure of Italy in the 19th century secured all privileges for the landlord class, including the Sicilian mafia, which protected the interests of the large landowners. In the new country, despite the fact that immigrants fall to the same social bottom, they nevertheless have a chance to take advantage of the opportunities for freedom of individual entrepreneurship and the most energetic, ambitious, and capable of taking risks choose criminal forms of business, because they provide the shortest path to economic success. In the Middle Ages, the lower classes saw in robbers, as, for example, in Robin Hood, a force, to some extent, restoring social justice.as the immobile social structure of Italy in the 19th century secured all privileges for the landlord class, including the Sicilian mafia, which protected the interests of the large landowners. In the new country, despite the fact that immigrants fall to the same social bottom, they nevertheless have a chance to take advantage of the opportunities of freedom of individual entrepreneurship and the most energetic, ambitious, and capable of taking risks choose criminal forms of business, because they provide the shortest path to economic success. In the Middle Ages, the lower classes saw in robbers, as, for example, in Robin Hood, a force, to some extent, restoring social justice.that immigrants fall to the same social bottom, they nevertheless have a chance to take advantage of the opportunities for freedom of individual entrepreneurship and the most energetic, ambitious, and capable of taking risks choose criminal forms of business, because they provide the shortest path to economic success … In the Middle Ages, the lower classes saw in robbers, as, for example, in Robin Hood, a force, to some extent, restoring social justice.that immigrants fall to the same social bottom, they nevertheless have a chance to take advantage of the opportunities for freedom of individual entrepreneurship and the most energetic, ambitious, and capable of taking risks choose criminal forms of business, because they provide the shortest path to economic success … In the Middle Ages, the lower classes saw in robbers, as, for example, in Robin Hood, a force, to some extent, restoring social justice.to some extent restoring social justice.to some extent restoring social justice.
Organized crime in America does not at all see itself as an organization of fighters for justice. Just like other business corporations, they participate in a competitive, gambling and often dangerous game of high stakes. Fighting for success, for the American Dream. Prior to The Godfather, gangster films were the only genre that allowed for the absence of a happy ending. The gangster died at the end of the film. This was the didactics of the film - you cannot succeed outside of legalized channels. True, life itself did not confirm this truth. The huge economic success of the mafia during the Prohibition, and after its abolition, the control of certain areas of the industry - transportation, construction, garbage collection and legalized gambling, in the post-war period turned the Mafia into one of the largest corporations in the country. Mafia success,the economic success of organized crime was, in many ways, a confirmation of the fact that in a competitive environment only an organization, a corporation, can achieve real, tangible success. Society poses innumerable barriers to the individual entrepreneur, and especially for the immigrant.
Only an organization in any area of business, be it legal or criminal, is a guarantee of victory. The ability of gangster communities to create complex organizational structures of business, find new ways in it, and courage in the face of the threat of jail time or murder by competitors, cannot but command respect from an American brought up on the idea - "Business, business first." Mafioso is surrounded by a romantic halo - despite the danger, he breaks the law in order to achieve what all law-abiding citizens of the country want - success. In contrast, he goes to his goal in high-risk conditions and achieves economic success and the well-being of his family. And family success and well-being are the fundamental principles of American life. What is not forgiven is defeat in the struggle for success and betrayal of the interests of the family.
Modern mafia groups copy the organizational methods of corporations, but in the 19th century, during the period of their creation, the process was reversed, corporations not only adopted the techniques of criminal gangs, but also used them to capture or neutralize competitors. The Italian mafia is the most well-known part of the organized crime world, but the FBI estimates it to be no more than 10,000. The number of individual criminal cases stored in the information database of the Ministry of Justice is 50 million. Most of them are associated with violent crimes, and violence has been widespread since the founding of the country. As the old and ever-new slogan “Violence as American as the apple pie” says, violence is as typical of America as apple pie.
Historically, the aggressiveness of the American is a consequence of the Protestant doctrine - the idea of struggle with nature, outside and inside man. The entire economic civilization is built on the principle of the struggle of all against all, and widespread crime is only a consequence of this principle. "The gospel of money was a gospel of violence," the prayer for money was a prayer of violence, Tocqueville wrote of the early days of American industry. In Martin Chelzwik, Dickens describes, by his definition, a typical American of the era of "conquering new frontiers", Hannibal Chollop, - "This honorable gentleman carries several revolvers in his coat pockets, and on his belt a huge knife, which he affectionately calls" The Ripper. ", and his saber, no less tender, "Tickler". He is famous for his gallantry. One of the episodes of its manifestation was described by local newspapers, when Mr. Chollop,with his usual grace, the saber pierced the eye of his opponent."
It was an uninterrupted war of all against all, people killed each other for land, water, mines. After finishing the destruction of the Indians and gaining land, the cowboys, herders and farmers began a continuous war against each other. It is enough to watch a few cowboy films to see the enormous intensity of the war between everyone and everyone for wealth, in whatever form it is embodied. The aggressiveness of the period of the development of the Wild West was continued later, during the growth of the industry and the creation of industrial empires and corporations. Railroad owners staged disasters on rival lines, factory owners hired bandits to intimidate workers and suppress strikes, unions hired other bandits to contain bandits hired by owners. A society whose true cult is action legalizes all forms of energy expression. In order to create a new one,you need to destroy the old and aggressiveness in this process is necessary. The breaker of the law, the criminal, has always been a more popular hero in American history than statesmen, businessmen, or artists. He embodied individual freedom, carried to its logical conclusion.
Gangsters, hitmen, and serial killers became iconic figures. In many parts of the country, you can find museums dedicated to national heroes, the Hall of Fame of Outstanding Robbers. Thousands of books have been written and hundreds of films have been shot about their life and work. The American public, for the most part, does not know the history of their country, does not know the names of most presidents, let alone world history, but names such as Billy Kid, Jesse James, Benny and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Ma Bakker, John Dillinger, Al Capone, Lepke-Buhalter, Bugs Moran, Bugsy Siegel - everyone knows these names. Hollywood has created hundreds of films about great gangsters, thousands of books and studies of their lives are devoted to them, multivolume works tell in detail about their lives. More than twenty films have been made about just one of them, Bill Keed. The legend of the bravefearless bandit has been immortalized. According to the testimony of those who met him, he was a thin little man with sloping, woman's shoulders, rotten teeth, and looked like a complete degenerate. What he was in real life does not really matter. Billy the Kid, like many other bandits of his time, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the eyes of society, was a symbol, a symbol of the individual's opposition to a new industrial society, where only belonging to an organization, cartel, corporation gives a chance of success. In the real economy, corporations won the fight against individual entrepreneurship, but their victory was guaranteed by the very atmosphere of a society that worshiped strength and fortune, and saw breaking the law as business in a different way.rotten teeth, and looked like a complete degenerate. What he was in real life does not really matter. Billy the Kid, like many other bandits of his time, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the eyes of society, was a symbol, a symbol of the individual's opposition to a new industrial society, where only belonging to an organization, cartel, corporation gives a chance of success. In the real economy, corporations won the fight against individual entrepreneurship, but their victory was guaranteed by the very atmosphere of a society that worshiped strength and fortune, and saw breaking the law as business in a different way.rotten teeth, and looked like a complete degenerate. What he was in real life does not really matter. Billy the Kid, like many other bandits of his time, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the eyes of society, was a symbol, a symbol of the individual's opposition to a new industrial society, where only belonging to an organization, cartel, corporation gives a chance of success. In the real economy, corporations won the fight against individual entrepreneurship, but their victory was guaranteed by the very atmosphere of a society that worshiped power and fortune and saw breaking the law as business in a different way.a symbol of the individual's opposition to the new industrial society, where only belonging to an organization, cartel, corporation gives a chance for success. In the real economy, corporations won the fight against individual entrepreneurship, but their victory was guaranteed by the very atmosphere of a society that worshiped strength and fortune, and saw breaking the law as business in a different way.a symbol of the individual's opposition to the new industrial society, where only belonging to an organization, cartel, corporation gives a chance for success. In the real economy, corporations won the fight against individual entrepreneurship, but their victory was guaranteed by the very atmosphere of a society that worshiped strength and fortune, and saw breaking the law as business in a different way.
One of the most successful '90s television series Melrose Place, it featured a group of young professionals who build their careers on deception and use all means, including extortion, blackmail and murder, to achieve their goals. Heroes are not only outwardly attractive, they are charming in the process of their manipulations. Success is not only a reward for selfless work - it is the realization of all human talents. What could shock the viewer before, as, say, the phrase of the hero Michael Douglas in the film "Wall Street", a stock exchange agent who does not disdain by any means - "greed is good", greed is beautiful, greed moves the country's economy, today nobody can outrage.
“Our ideal is big money. The ideal gives birth to countless hordes of criminals and they are true heroes. They have one moral - the moral of victory. They do not believe in any rules, laws, norms, so they always win. Their success proves the moral superiority of cheaters over the crowds of fair game fools. " R. Mill, classic of American sociology. "Today, the individual is completely removed from responsibility to society -" If it feels good, do it. " - if you want something, do “Good guy finish last” - an honest person comes to the finish line last. Only the one who plays without rules wins. " Sociologist Thomas D. Kerr.
The heroes of today's cinema, represented by a galaxy of actors - Michael Douglas, John Malkovich, Wesley Snipes, James Spider, do not enter into conflict with society, do not experience any moral torment over the immoralism of the system, they simply use the opportunities that society provides. The struggle for freedom in economic activity and for individual rights has lost its attractiveness, the ideals of the 60s have lost their social and moral pathos. Today's press has assessed the film from the sixties, which tells about the owner of an independent newspaper, who, at the risk of his well-being and, ultimately, his life, tries to bring to justice the head of the local mafia, who bribed most of the local politicians and has more power.rather than any businessman or politician of the city, this is a story of a conflict between the ambitions of a newspaperman and a mafia. Moral categories, the struggle between good and evil, began to be perceived as an anachronism.
If we consider that art reflects the most important issues of life for society, then American literature, film and television, in which the topic of crime dominates, answers these questions. Not only to the question “What to do?”, But also to the question “How to do?”, But does not answer the question about the social causes of crime. Art, having become an entertainment industry, sells a product for which there is a huge demand. Never before the second half of the twentieth century did crime occupy such a huge place in public consciousness and culture, but in the twentieth century they occupied almost all the space in the media.
Crimes are the central theme of newspapers, television and radio. The vast majority of crimes have one and the same motive - money. The scope of criminal offenses is just the tip of the iceberg - they are an indicator, widely accepted in society, of the desire to find the shortest paths to success. More than two million inmates in American prisons are losers, those who are incapable of manipulating others and deceiving within the framework of the law.
The system provides a huge number of opportunities in this particular area, and this is a wide creative base for self-expression, a manifestation of individual talent, a game in which the winner asserts himself as an active participant in the business process. The auto mechanic will identify the car owner, the doctor, the nonexistent problem in the motor that will bring him the greatest profit. The doctor will prescribe to the patient, the car mechanic, the set of tests unnecessary for the patient, which will increase his income. The seller of the insurance policy will impose insurance on the customer, the plumber, that covers nothing. And the plumber, for the minimum work in the house of an insurance agent, will strip him of three skins. All segments of the population are involved in the business game, everyone exploits everyone.
In the dynamics of the transition of banknotes from one hand to another, they turn out to be among the most energetic, the most shameless, the most flexible in achieving personal success. They move the economy, increasing its efficiency as a whole, throughout the country. As Georges Sand wrote over a hundred years ago, “A European romantic would hang a mournful lyre between the coastal willows in order to pour out curses on the evil of civilization. An American cannot selflessly condemn the evil from which the strength, wealth, and independence of his people arose."
Author: Michel Hoffman