Sociology 2306: Outline--Week 12

Jerry Mander, The Case Against the Global Economy, Sierra Books, 1996

Individual responsibility vs. the power of corporate structures

I. Advertising and American culture

A. Corporations spend $150 billion yearly, more than is spent on high school educ.

B. 75% of commercial television network time paid for by 100 largest corporations.

C. Average viewer watches 20,000 commercials per year; all agree that you should buy something.

II. Corporations and morality.

A. Corporate executives not free to act on their own moral values... example of Chairman of the Board of Union Carbide after the Bhopal, India, incident which chemical spill which killed 6,000.

B. Corporations inherently disloyal to:

1. Their workers, including their managers.

2. Communities, even if they've been there many years.

3. Nations.

4. Consumers that may be hurt by their products

C.Obligatory rules of by which corporations operate:

1. The profit imperative

2. The growth imperative

3. Competition and aggression

4. Amorality

5. Hierarchy

6. Quantification (e.g., the cost of unsafe space heaters in terms of lawsuits)

7. Dehumanization

8. Exploitation

III. "Nicotine Wars"--Video and groups

IV. Why do they do it? The Social Psychology of Organizational Deviance

Rember, good guys and bad guys NOT SOCIOLOGY

Livingston: "Sociological theories tend to see crime as the product of normal people engaging in normal social processes in normal (though perhaps not ideal) social environments."

A. Organizational scripts and judgment heuristics: exploding Pintos

1. Why I like this article.

2. Mother Jones: moral entrepreneurs and the social construction of deviance.

Cost-benefit analysis (Internal Ford company memo, later revealed in court)

Cost of repairs: 12,500,000 x $11 = $137,000,000

Benefits:
180 deaths x $200,000/death +
180 burn injuries x $67,000/injury + 2100 burned cars x $700/car =
$49,530,000

3. Crash-testing not yet required (but the 11 they did had dismal results)

4. Gioia becomes Recall Coordinator :(1973)

a. Demands of the job
b. Excitement and ambitions

5. First notice of the Pinto--incinerated
hulk--leads to review but no recommendation. Only marginally worse than other small cars.

6. Eventually, after Mother Jones expose and lawsuits, NHTSA forces recall.

7. Why didn't I see the gravity of the issue and its moral overtones? What happened to my original values? 150-151

"The recall coordinators job was serious business. The scripts associated with it influenced me much more than I influenced it..."

"Even the best intentioned organization members organize information into cognitive structures that serve as (fallible) mental templates for handling incoming information and acting upon it."