Richard D. Wolff

Thanks for alerting me to that reddit discussion. It contains a valuable and spot-on reminder that however much we may demonize the perpetrators of profit-increasing decisions by corporate leaders, they are responding to the existing capitalist system's structure of rewards and punishments. To end the social costs of their behavior requires changing the system so they or those who replace them, facing different rewards and punishments, will behave differently. Indeed, our fascination with mobsters, crime stories, etc is a deeply psychological recognition that they are explicitly what most business leaders are implicitly, mobsters get caught (at least in the fiction) while "banksters" dont or at least dont get punished. And if we did try and imprison bank leaders, because those who replace them face the same basic rewards and punishments will behave similarly. We have lived through this countless times. No matter how much people hope that the easier tasks of calling out the bad guys for moral turpitude, passing a reform law, or changing political leaders from establishment parties will suffice, they dont. The harder task of system change awaits and is probably better to get to that sooner rather than later.