-Caveat Lector-
e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism Pronunciation Key (-ltzm, -l-)
n.
1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups
deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in
intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2.
a. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
b. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
e·litist adj. & n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
elitism
n : the attitude that society should be governed by an elite group of
individuals
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
-----
from:
Elite Deviance (Fifth Edition)
David R. Simon
Allyn & Bacon(C) 1996,1993,1990,1986,1982
A Simon & Schuster Company
Needham Heights, Massachusetts 02194
ISBN 0-205-16460-9
-----
THE CLASSIFICATION OF ELITE DEVIANCE
The bias of the law enforcement effort in areas other than elite deviance has
had dramatic consequences for the scholarly study of such acts. Federal
granting agencies and elite foundations have historically provided little
funding for the study of elites. The first empirical study of elite deviance
was not published until 1940 (Sutherland's White Collar Crime), and there has
been what Clinard and Yeager describe as "little follow-up research, with
only minimal study being carried out on illegal corporate behavior."[112]
With such minimal study devoted to the subject, such terms as white-collar
crime have become quite ambiguous. A former head of the FBI defined
white-collar crime as "crimes that are committed by nonphysical means to
avoid payment or loss of money or to obtain business or personal advantage
where success depends upon guile or concealment.[113] Moreover, he applied
the term to crimes committed by persons from every level of society,
including both elites and nonelites.
The Justice Department's current definition of white-collar crime is so
ambiguous that it is difficult for criminological researchers to determine
the targets of FBI investigations in this area. This definition of
white-collar criminality includes just about everything that is both illegal
and nonviolent, involving "traditional notions of deceit, deception,
concealment, manipulation, breach of trust, subterfuge, or illegal
circumvention."[114]
This definition is so nonspecific that it could include everything from
welfare cheating by the poor to antitrust violations by upper class
business.... What is clear is that the Justice Department has drastically
altered and expanded the usual definition of white-collar crime as it has
previously been understood by both academic social science and law
enforcement.[115]
The view of elite deviance discussed here differs considerably from these
definitions. First, our concern is only with persons of the highest
socioeconomic status. That is, we have defined the elites of U.S. society as
comprised of corporate and government officials. We have done this because of
the enormous wealth and power that reside in the nation's political
economy—the relationship between the economic and political institutions. We
have, therefore, not included in our discussion labor unions or organized
criminal syndicates, except insofar as there are deviant relationships
between these organizations and corporate and governmental entities (e.g.,
the CIA hired Mafia members to assassinate Castro).
Second, unethical/ immoral acts are an important category of elite deviance,
a view that is not shared by all students of the subject. One criminologist
described a similar classification as "definitional quicksand."[116] In a
way, this is true. What is criminal is often easily understood by studying
only those acts that are codified in criminal statutes. This would make our
task relatively easy. But such an approach overlooks many complexities. For
example, in most instances, "only a short step separates unethical tactics
from violations of law. Many practices that were formerly considered
unethical have now been made illegal and [are] punished by government."[117]
Such acts include air and water pollution, bribes made overseas by
multinational corporations, the disregard of safety and health standards, and
false advertising. Thus, what is considered unethical at one time often
becomes illegal later.
Let us concede that the definition of what is unethical is, like deviance
itself, often in the eye of the beholder and thus subject to intense debate.
Nevertheless, as one observer states:
It is all too human to bracket law breaking with immorality, to assume that a
person who offends against the law is ipso facto less moral than one whose
activities remain within the legally permitted. Yet a few moments' honest
reflection will convince us that the mere fact of transgressing the legal
code or not tells us very little about our spiritual condition.[118]
The position taken herein is that it is unavoidable and indeed desirable that
students of deviance concern themselves with our spiritual condition. As
Galliher and McCartney, two criminologists, have pointed out:
If sociology makes no moral judgment independent of criminal statutes, it
becomes sterile and inhuman the work of moral eunuchs or legal
technicians.... If moral judgments above and beyond criminal law were not
made, the laws of Nazi Germany would be indistinguishable from the laws of
many other nations. Yet the Nuremberg trials after World War II advanced the
position that numerous officials of the Nazi government, although admittedly
acting in accordance with German laws, were behaving in such a grossly
immoral fashion as to be criminally responsible.... In the Nuremberg trials,
representatives of the Allied governments France,. England, the Soviet Union,
and the United States explicitly and publicly supported the idea of a moral
order and moral judgments independent of written law....[119]
However, defining elite deviance need not be so controversial or so
subjective. There is an objective definition of such deviance that can be
scientific, if by scientific, one means concepts that can be measured. One
such concept is harm. In this book, elite deviance refers to acts by elites
and/or the organizations they head that result in any of the following types
of harms:[120]
1. Physical harms-including death and/or physical injury or illness.
2. Financial harms-including robbery, fraud, and various "scams" not legally
defined as fraud, but which, nevertheless, result in consumers and investors
being deprived of their funds without receiving goods or services for which
they contracted.
3. Moral harm-by which the deviant behavior of elites (people who head
governmental or corporate institutions) forms a negative role-model that
encourages deviance, distrust, cynicism, and/or alienation among nonelites
(i.e., members of the middle and lower classes).
For example, President Nixon resigned from office in 1974 because of the
Watergate scandal. As mentioned earlier, following the Watergate scandal and
Nixon's resignation, confidence in government fell dramatically, and has
never recovered.
Not all harmful conditions are social problems. Harms become social problems
only if they are socially patterned. Socially patterned harms are traits,
characteristics, or behaviors exhibited by groups of people or institutions.
Thus, the inclusion of unethical acts in the study of elite deviance
represents not merely a residual category but the cutting edge of a neglected
and important field of inquiry
Third, our view of white-collar crime differentiates acts of personal
enrichment from acts that are committed on behalf of one's employer.[121]
This often becomes a difficult distinction to maintain when studying the
deviance of elites because some elites own the organizations in which (and on
behalf of whom) they commit such acts. This distinction is probably easier to
maintain when discussing political corruption than it is when discussing
economic deviance. However, many politicians receive illegal payments or
campaign contributions for the purpose of winning elections, not necessarily
for the purpose of hiding such monies in secret bank accounts or making other
personally enriching expenditures.
Also, some acts of employees, committed on behalf of employers, are
indirectly personally enriching and committed for the purpose of ensuring job
security or obtaining a promotion within the organization. This is not to say
that employees never embezzle funds for personal use or that politicians do
not take graft for the purpose of adding to their personal bank accounts.
The point is simply that the distinction between acts that are personally
enriching and acts committed on behalf of maintaining and/or increasing the
profitability or power of an organization in which one is owner or employer
is difficult to maintain.
Therefore, our view of elite deviance includes three types of acts: (1)
economic domination; (2) government and governmental control; and (3) denial
of basic human rights.[122]
Acts of Economic Domination
Acts of economic domination include crimes and unethical deeds that are
usually committed by single corporations or by corporations in league with
other organizations (e.g., the CIA). Typically, such crimes include
violations of antitrust laws, which prohibit the formation of monopolies,
price fixing, and false advertising. These crimes also involve defrauding
consumers, polluting the environment, and bribing politicians, both at home
and overseas. Acts of economic domination also include crimes committed by
business, such as not correcting unsafe working conditions and deliberately
manufacturing unsafe goods and hazardous medicines and foods. And as
mentioned, there are instances where corporations illegally enter into
business ventures with organized criminal syndicates.
It is important to note that some acts of economic deviance that are illegal
in the United States are legal abroad. For example, in one instance, an
organic mercury fungicide, banned by law for sale in the United States, was
used in Iraq to coat by-products of 8,000 tons of wheat and barley This
resulted in 400 deaths and 5,000 hospitalizations among Iraqi customers.[123]
Dumping of unsafe products is a $1.2 billion per year business. It is
perceived as being unethical by journalists, government officials, and
certain businesspeople. Nonetheless, it is not illegal.
Crimes of Government and Governmental Control
This category includes tax loopholes and other forms of "corporate welfare,"
including subsidies and certain special favors granted in doing business with
the government. This category includes a host of acts involving the
usurpation of power. Involved here are the Watergate crimes, crimes of
electioneering, and other acts involving violations of civil liberties,
graft, and corruption designed to perpetuate a given administration and to
enrich its members. Also included are those crimes committed by the
government against persons and groups who are supposed threats to national
security, such as crimes of warfare and political assassination.[124]
Related to offenses against those viewed as threats to national security are
violations of individual civil rights, including illegal surveillance by law
enforcement agencies, infiltration of law-abiding political groups by
government agents, and denials of due process of law.
Many unethical acts are also committed by governmental organizations and
officials. Some examples include classifying certain types of information as
secret simply to cover up embarrassing incidents, making campaign promises
that candidates know they cannot or will not keep, defining a situation as a
genuine crisis where no real crisis conditions exist, letting out government
contracts without competitive bidding, and allowing cost overruns on such
contracts.
Elite Deviance as Denial of Basic Human Rights
Related to both deviance by corporations and deviance by governments are
actions that contribute to various types of social injuries. Included here
are threats to the dignity and quality of life for specific groups and
humanity as a whole. Such practices as racism and sexism, especially sexual
harassment, either political or economic, fall into this category In addition
is the threat to the human race posed by the nuclear arms race. While such
notions of humanity are not always part of a nation's laws, they do enter
into any value judgments made concerning the worth and dignity of individuals.
A body of international agreement and law contains some basic notions
concerning human rights. Most nations of the world, including undemocratic
nations, now agree that such rights should include the provision of basic
material needs, as well as freedom from torture, arbitrary arrest and
detention, assassination, and kidnapping.
Thus, the criminal and unethical acts of corporations and government, plus
violations of basic human rights, that are part of certain bodies of
international agreements subscribed to by the United States constitute the
subject matter of elite deviance.
THE CONDITIONS LEADING TO ELITE DEVIANCE
In the remainder of our inquiry into the various types of elite deviance,
several assumptions will be made regarding the causes, costs, and
consequences of such actions.
First, organizations are often characterized by what has been termed "the
shield of elitist invisibility"[125] This refers to actions, as well as heads
of political organizations and governmental agencies, frequently being
shrouded in secrecy Corporate management and government officials are often
shielded from the press, government investigators, and boards of directors
(in the case of corporations) by virtue of the power they possess over
information. For example, the illegal payments made by the Gulf Oil Company
during the 1970s were kept secret from the board of directors by Gulf's chief
executive officer over eighteen months after the scandal made headlines.
Such deceptions are possible in huge organizations. Corporations are often
international organizations, characterized by "complex and varied sets of
structural relationships between the boards of directors, executives,
managers, and other employees on the one hand, and between parent
corporations, corporate divisions, and subsidiaries on the other."[126] These
complex relationships often make it impossible for outsiders and many
insiders to determine who is responsible for what. Such structural
complexities make it relatively easy to perform a host of acts corporate
managers wish to be kept secret.
Next, the benefits involved in such deviance far outweigh the risks of
apprehension and penalty While estimates of the cost of corporate crime are
made infrequently, and most date back to the 1970s and early 1980s, two
congressional studies have put the figure between $174 and $200 billion
annuallv.[127] This is more than the cost of all other types of crime plus
the cost of running the entire criminal justice system combined. No source
can give exact estimates concerning the costs of political corruption and
various kickbacks, but The New York Times estimated that business bribery and
kickbacks, at least a portion of which goes to politicians, may run as high
as $15 billion per year.[128] Thus, the monetary rewards of corporate and
political crime are virtually without parallel.
Coupled with these rewards are minimal risks. From 1890 to 1970, only three
businesspeople were sent to jail for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act
(see Chapter 2 for details), and from 1946 to 1953, the average fine levied
in such cases was $2,600 (with $5,000 being the maximum possible).[129] We
can see that there is very little incentive not to violate some laws. And as
criminologist Donald Cressey has stated, "Some businessmen have so little
respect for the law that they would prefer an antitrust indictment to being
caught wearing argyle socks.... They do so because they do not believe in
these laws. This is another way of saying that they consider such laws ...
illegitimate."[130]
The prime goal of business is to make a profit, and, according to the
business ideology, government regulation is often viewed as meddling (see
Chapter 2). In summary, organizational structure, complexity, and primary
goals (e.g., autonomy and profit) all help to shield top level officials from
the scrutiny of the press and the law. In addition, the lenient penalties
established for much elite deviance are ineffectual deterrents.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF ELITE DEVIANCE
The consequences of elite deviance to U.S. society are thought to be
monumental by most experts. Consider the following:
1. It is estimated that five times as many persons die each year from
illnesses and injuries contracted on the job (100,000 to 200,000 persons)
than are murdered by all street criminals.[131] (See Chapters 3 and 4 for
details.)
2. We have observed that public confidence in U.S. economic and political
elites has drastically declined with revelations of elite deviance. In
addition, many criminologists believe that deviance by elites provides either
motivation or rationalization for nonelites to commit profit oriented
crimes.[132]
3. The power of elites to help shape criminal law and its enforcement raises
serious questions regarding the racial and class biases of the criminal
justice system's traditional equating of the crime problem in the United
States with street crime.[133]
4. The monetary costs of elite deviance are thought to contribute
substantially to inflation. As mentioned, estimates range from $174 to $231
billion a year in the prices added to goods and services. (See also Chapter
8.)
5. It will be demonstrated that elite deviance has been an important cause of
the persistence and growth of organized crime in the United States. This
assistance has been provided by both economic and political elites (see
Chapter 2).
One sociologist has argued that there exists a symbiotic (mutually
interdependent) relationship between deviance by elites and deviance by
nonelites because elite deviance greatly affects the distribution of power in
society. Much elite deviance is aimed at maintaining or increasing the
proportion of wealth and power that rests in elite hands. Given the
inequitable distribution of such resources, the most powerless and
economically deprived members of society suffer from social conditions "that
tend to provoke powerless individuals into criminality."[134] Likewise, it is
possible that elites, who view themselves as respectable members of society,
view the deviance of the powerless as the genuinely dangerous type of crime
faced by society Such elite attitudes result in elites viewing themselves as
morally superior to nonelites and the crimes they commit as not really
criminal. Thus, elites may be even more likely to violate legal and ethical
standards because of the deviance of nonelites, which is in part caused by
the inequitable distribution of resources, the existence of which are in turn
related to elite power.
Finally, the consequences listed above about elite deviance constitute a mere
beginning in this regard. The relationship between the acts of the powerful
and those of the powerless-especially deviant acts-is not well investigated
by scholars. Moreover, the behavior of elites, insofar as it effects an
alienation and loss of confidence among nonelites, undoubtedly has additional
negative consequences about which we have much to learn. What is clear is
that elite deviance possesses numerous important social, economic, and
political consequences for all of society. Only a few of the most dramatic of
these consequences will be examined in this volume.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has introduced the topic of elite deviance. Because of the
Vietnam conflict, Watergate, the Iran/Contra scandal, the S&L bailout, and
numerous recent incidents involving corporate and governmental wrongdoings,
elite deviance has become a major public concern. Closer examination reveals
that the deviant acts of economic and political elites are not random events.
They are related to the very structure of wealth and power in the United
States and to the processes that maintain such structures.
Moreover, aside from being illegal or unethical (at least according to the
norms maintained by persons outside the organization committing the deviant
act), elite deviance has several basic characteristics:
1. It occurs because it furthers the goals of economic and political
organizations—namely, the maintenance or increase of profit and/or power.
2. It is committed with the support of the elites who head such
organizations. Such support may be open and active or covert and implied.
3. It may be committed either by elites and/or employees acting on their
behalf.[135]
Finally, such deviance is important because it holds many negative
consequences for society, including high prices, dangerous products, and the
increased motivation to commit deviance on the part of nonelites.
Despite all the public attention recently devoted to elite deviance, it
remains a poorly understood and hence unresolved social problem in U.S.
society Since corporations and government now touch nearly every aspect of
our daily lives, it behooves us all to learn as much as possible about the
dimensions of and possible solutions to this type of deviant behavior.
ENDNOTES
1. The poll aired 22 November 1993 on CNN. A poll taken the same week by CBS
news indicated that almost 90 percent of the public believed that agencies of
the U.S. government were involved in the Kennedy assassination, an increase
of 15 percent over the Time magazine poll released just before Oliver Stone's
JFK began airing in theaters. See Time (12 December 1991), 56.
2. Robert Groden and Harrison Livingston, High Treason (New York: Berkley,
1989):3.
3. Anthony Summers, Conspiracy. (New York: Paragon House), 14. Summers
readable treatise remains one of the best guides to the unanswered questions
concerning the Kennedy assassination.
4. See Sam Adams, "Vietnam Cover-Up Playing War with Numbers," in Focus:
Unexplored Deviance, Ed. C. Swanson (Guilford, CT: Dushkin, 1978, 93-105)
(article originally appeared in Harper's, May 1975); A. Rogow, The Dying of
the Light (New York: Putnam, 1975) 261-71, and Michael Parenti, Democracy for
the Few, 3rd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980),15-55.
5. See David R. Simon, "Watergate And The Nixon Presidency: A Comparative
Ideological Analysis," in L. Friedman & W F. Levantrouser, Eds., Watergate
and Afterward: The Legacy of Richard M. Nixon (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press,
1992), 5-22.
6. Alan Wolfe, The Seamy Side of Democracy, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman), vii.
7. Arthur S. Miller, "Declining Faith in Government Institutions," Society 17
January/ February 1980), 3.
8. See Bill Moyers, The Secret Government (Berkeley, CA: Seven Locks).
9. See I Draper, "Revelations at The North Trial," New York Review of Books,
27 (17 August, 1989), 54-59.
10. The New York Times, 21 June 1994, A-1.
11. M. Hoffman, The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1993 (New York: Pharos
Books, 1992), 53.
12. R. Ferrighetti, The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1994 (Mahwah, NJ:
Funk & Wagnalls), 60, 75.
13. James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day Americans Told the Truth: What
People Believe about Evervthinq That Really Matter,; NewYork Prentice Hall
1991) 143, 150, 155, 207, 231. This is an important study of many public
attitudes concerning American life and culture.
14. Seattle Post Intelligencer, "Americans Feel Cut off from Political
Process," (11 June 1991), A-3.
15. Vice President A] Gore, Creating A Government That Works Better & Costs
Less: Report of the National Performance Review (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1993), 11.
16. The New York Times Magazine (23 January, 1994), 20.
17. See Stephen Craig, The Malevolent Leaders: Popular Discontent In America
(Boulder, CO: Westview), 11.
18. See Howard Fineman, "The Virtuecrats," Newsweek (13 June 1994), 31, 36
for poll results.
19. These data are taken from Louis Harris, Inside America (New York:
Vintage, 1987), 35-37, 346.
20. See, for example, A.W. Schaef, When Society Becomes an Addict (New York:
Harper and Row), 3 and following. See also Irving Howe, "America's Bitter
Harvest," Dissent 35 (Winter 1988), 6, Alan Wolfe, The Seamy Side of
Democracy, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1978), vii.
21. See "Opinion Roundup," Public Opinion 5 (October/ November 1979), 31.
22. See M. Clinard and P. Yeager, "Corporate Crime: Issues in Research,"
Criminology 2 (August 1978), 260.
23. S. Balkan et al., Crime and Deviance in America: A Critical Approach
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1980),170.
24. J. Roebuck and S.C. Weeber, Political Crime in the United States:
Analyzing Crime by and against Government (New York: Praeger, 1978), 86.
25. Clinard and Yeager, 260.
26. "End of the Great Engine Flap: Settlement of Suit against GM for Use of
Chevrolet Engines in Other Cars," Time (2 January 1978), 66
27. See J. Conyers, Jr., "Corporate and White-Collar Crime: A View by the
Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime," American Criminal Lazo Review
17 (March 1980), 290, and W. E. Blundell, "Equity Funding: I Did It for the
jollies," in Crime at the Top: Deviance in Business and the Professions, ed.
J. Johnson and J. Douglas, 153-85 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1978),182.
28. Irwin Ross, "How Lawless are Big Companies," in Florida 2000: Creative
Crime Control, ed. L. A. Wollan, 39-46 (Tampa: Florida Endowment for the
Humanities 1983), 39 (originally appeared in Fortune, December 1980).
29. Ralph Nader and Ronald Brownstein, "Beyond the Love Canal," The
Progressive 44 (May 1980), 28, 30.
30. R. Hilts, "50,000 Deaths a Year Blamed on Soot in Air," San Francisco
Chronicle (13 December, 1993): A-8. San Francisco Chronicle (19 July, 1993),
A-1, A-15.
31. William Greider, Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal of American
Democracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), Chapters I and 2, 124.
32. Green, Winning Back America (New York: Bantam, 1982), 229.
33. "Toxicity," The People 95:111 (31 August 1985), 4.
34. "The Dirty Seas," Time (31 August 1988), 4.
35. -"The Dirty Seas," 48.
36. This account is based on Keith Schneider, "Storm-Tossed Admiral Rides
Scandal at Energy Department," The New York Times (14 June 1991), A-13.
37. G. Geis, "Upper World Crime," in Current Perspectives on Criminal
Behavior: Original Essays in Criminology, ed. A. Blumberg, 114-37 (New York:
Knopf, 1974),116.
38. See R. Kramer, "Corporate Criminality: The Development of an Idea," in
Corporations as Criminals, ed. E. Hochstedler, 10-38 (Beverly Hills: Sage,
1984), 18; and C. Little, Understanding Deviance and Control (Itasca, IL:
Peacock, 1983), 214.
39. See Alex Thio, Deviant Behavior (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978), 353.
40. See M. Mintz and J. Cohen, Power, Inc. (New York: Viking, 1976), xix.
41. See especially the following by C. Wright Mills: The Sociological
Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959); The Power Elite (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1956), and Character and Social Structure (New
York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1953) (with Hans Gerth). Other useful works
include Joseph Simecca, The Sociological Theory of C. Wright Mills (Port
Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1978); Society and Freedom—An Introduction to
Humanist Sociology (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981); and John Eldridge,
C. Wright Mills (New York: Travistock, 1983).
42. See Michael Parenti, Make Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment
(New York: St. Martins Press, 1991), and Erick Barnouw, The Sponsor (New
York: Oxford, 1978).
43. I. Dye and H. Zeigler, The Irony of Democracy, 9th ed. (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1993), 4. For an excellent summary of the evidence supporting the
existence of an elite see Harold Kerbo and Richard Della Fave, "The Empirical
Side of the Power Elite Debate," The Sociological Quarterly 20 (Winter 1979),
5-220.
44. Dye and Zeigler, 14, 19, 235.
45. See Douglas Dowd, U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776: Of, By, and For
Which People? " (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 113-15.
46. Thomas Dye, Whos Running America? 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1983), 38.
47. Thomas Dye, Who',-; Running America? 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1986), 16-19.
48. Ben Bagdikian, Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), 3, and John
Hewitt, "Building Media Empires," 395-403 in A. Asa Berger, (Ed.) Media
U.S.A. (New York: Longman, 1991):396.
49. Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor (New York: Random House,
1990), 17, 28, and Kevin Phillips, Boiling Point (New York: Random House,
1993), Chapter 1.
50. Dowd, 1993,114.
51. These figures are taken from Peter Evens and Steve Schneider, "The
Political Economy of the Corporation," in Critical Issues in Sociology, ed.
Scott McNall (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1980), 221.
52. Evens and Schneider, 222.
53. See Beth Mintz and Michael Swartz, "Interlocking Directorates and
Interest Group Formation," American Sociological Review 46 (December), 851-69.
54. Dye (4th ed.), 176.
55. G. David Garson, Power and Politics in the United States (Lexington, MA:
D.C. Heath), 181, 182,185.
56. G. William Domhoff, Who Rides America Now? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1983), 77. Such power also stems from the fact that the U.S.
Lipper class contributes heavily to political parties, campaigns, and
political action committees (PACs) (see discussion that follows). Moreover,
its media ownership aids it in gaining an "impact on the consciousness of all
(social) classes in the nation." From D. Gilbert and J. Kahl, The American
Class Structure (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1982),348-49.
57. See G. William Domhoff's, Who Rides America? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1967), 87-96, The Power Elite And The State: How Policy is
Made in America. (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1990), and "The American
Power Structure," 170-95 in M. Olsen & M. Marger, Power in Modern Societies.
(Boulder: Westview, 1993), 172-174 for evidence concerning the national upper
class and their policy-making role.
58. 1 R. Dye and J. W. Pickering, "Governmental and Corporate Elites:
Convergence and Differentiation," Journal of Politics 36 (November 1974), 905.
59. P. Freitag, "The Cabinet and Big Business: A Study of Interlocks," Social
Problems 23 (December 1975), 137-52.
60. H. Kerbo, "Upper Class Power," 223-237 in M. Olsen & M. Marger, (Eds.)
Power In Modern Societies, 227.
61. N. Savio, "The Business of Government: Clinton's Corporate Cabinet,"
Multinational Monitor (January, 1993): 24-6 is the source of this and the
following examples.
62. Roger H. Davidson and W. J. Oleszak, Congress anti Its Members, 2nd ed.
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1985), 110.
63. This point and the discussion that follows are based on R. A. Garner,
Social Change (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1977) 252-254. For a right-wing
conspiratorial view, see Gary Allen, None Dare Call It Conspiracy (Rossmor,
CA: Concord Press, 1971); and Pat Robertson, The New World Order (Dallas:
Word, 1991).
64. Garner, 253.
65. For a summary of such differences see Dye (2nd ed.), 190-195.
66. See William Chambliss, ed., Criminal Law in Action (Santa Barbara, CA:
Hamilton, 1975), 230.
67. Garner, 253.
68. Cited in Garson, 183. A more detailed discussion of such monopolization
and its effects is found in Chapter 3 of this volume.
69. Michael Parenti, Power anti the Powerless (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1978),22.
70. Dye (4th ed.), 153.
71. Dye (2nd ed.), 126.
72. Dye (2nd ed.), 29.
73. Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality: The Politics of The News Media, 2nd
ed. (New York: St. Martins, 1993), 29. See I H. White, The Making of the
President 1972 (New York: Atheneum, 1973), Chapter 8; Domhoff, Who Rules
America? 79-83.
74. Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 168.
75. Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon, 1979),12.
76, Gans, 14.
77. G. M. Tabor, "Capitalism: Is It Working?" Time (21 April 1980), 55.
78. Ibid.
79. Michael T. Klare, War Without End (New York: Knopf, 1972), 77.
80. G. William Domhoff, The Powers That Be: Processes of Riding Class
Domination in America (New York: Vintage, 1978),118.
81. William Greider, Chapter 1.
82. Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 226.
83. Mark Green and Jack Newfield, "Who Owns Congress?" The Village Voice (21
April, 1980), 16.
84. Michael Waldman, Who Robbed America? A Citizen's Guide to the Savings and
Loan Scandal (New York: Random House, 1990), 65.
85. See Warren Weaver, Jr., "What Is a Campaign Contributor Buying?" The New
York Times (3 March 1977), E-2.
86. A. Etzioni, Capital Corruption (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and
Jovanovich, 1984),3.
87. W. C. Cooper, "Take Back Your Dirty PAC Money," The Nation, 7 (May 1983),
565; Green, Who Runs Congress?, 30-31.
88. R. Wagman (Ed.), 19.
89. D. Drake and M. Ulham, Making Drugs Making Money (Kansas City, MO:
Andrews & McMeel, 1993), 41.
90. Drake and Ulham, 41.
91. Charles Mathias, "Should There Be Financing of Congressional Campaigns?"
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 486 (July
1986), 65.
92. Mathias, 66. See also Richard Bolling, "Money in Politics," Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 486 (July 1986), 76-80, for
additional comments by a leading federal politician.
93. See William Greider, Who Will Tell The People?, 51.
94. Ross Perot, Not For Stile At Any Price (New York: Hyperion, 1993), 140.
95. Greider, 52ff.
96. Liz Galtney, "A Case of Legal Corruption," U.S. News and World Report (7
November 1988), 20.
97. Robert Sherrill, "Deep Pockets," The Nation 247 (27 August-3 September,
1988),170.
98. Galtney, 21-23.
99. R. Wagman (Ed.), The World Almanac of U.S. Politics, 17. See also Ed
Garvey, "Campaign Reform? Get Real," The Progressive (September, 1993),
18-20. Garvey notes the average cost of a Senate seat in 1992 was $3.5
million, and the average House seat cost $555,000.
100. Walter D. Burnham, "Party System and the Political Process," 257-307 in
The American Party System, 2nd ed, eds. William N. Chambers and Walter D.
Burnham (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 277.
101. Domhoff, The Powers That Be, 148.
102. This perspective is discussed in James 0' Conner, The Fiscal Crisis of
the State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973); Harold Barnet, "Corporate
Capitalism, Corporate Crime," Crime and Delinquency (27 January 1981), 4-23;
F. I Cullen et al., Corporate Crime Under Attack: The Ford Pinto Case and
Beyond (Cincinnati: Anderson, 1987), Chapter 2.
103. Barnet, 4-6.
104. Two of the most interesting works on this topic are Charles Derber,
Money, Murder, and the American Dream (Boston: Farber & Farber, 1992) and
Steven Messner and Richard Rosenfeld, Crime and the American Dwain (Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth, 1994). See the discussion in Chapter 8.
105. James Mills, The Underground Empire (New York: Dell, 1986).
106. Tabor, 54.
107. Currie and Skolnick, 25.
108. See Stuart Hills (ed.), Corporate Violence: Injury and Death for Profit
(Totowa, NJ: Roman & Littlefield, 1988); and David R. Simon "Book Review
Essay: White-Collar Crime and Its Future," Justice Quarterly 5 (March 1988),
157, 159.
109. See Conyers, 291, 299 and Chapter 2 of this volume.
110. Steve Hedges and Gordon Witkins, "The Bulletproof Villains," U.S. News
and World Report, 23 July 1990, 18.
111. ABA Section on Criminal justice, Committee on Economic Offenses, March
1977, 6-7, cited in Conyers, 290.
112. Clinard and Yeager, 256.
113. William Webster, "Examination of FBI Theory and Methodology," in
Conyers, 276.
114. Attorney General of the United States, National Priorities for the
Investigation and Prosecution of White-collar Crime (Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office, 1980), ii.
115. David R. Simon and Stanley L. Swart, "The FBI Focuses on White-Collar
Crime: Promises and Pitfalls," Crime and Delinquency 30 (January 1984), 109.
116. See Geis, 117.
117. Clinard and Yeager, 264.
118. John B. Mays, Crime and the Social Structure (London: Faber and Faber,
1967), 39. Power, Crime, and Criminal Lace (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press,
1977), 1.
119. J. F. Galliher and J. L. McCartney, Criminology: Power, Crime, and
Criminal Law (Homewood, IL: Dorsey, 1977), 10.
120. The following discussion is based on Laura Schrager & James F. Short,
"Toward A Sociology of Organizational Crime," Social Problems 25 (February):
407-419 & David R. Simon, Social Problems and Die Sociological Imagination
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995): 13-18.
121. See H. Edethertz et al., The Investigation of White-Collar Crime. (U.S.
Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C., 1977), 7.
122. For an extended discussion of this typology, see Richard Quinney, Class,
State and Crime (New York: McKay/Longman, 1977), 50-52.
123. See Mark Dowie, "The Corporate Crime of the Century," Mother Jones 9
(November 1979), 24.
124. Quinney, 51.
125. W. C. Scott and David K. Hart, Organizational America (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1979), 40.
126. Clinard and Yeager, 265.
127. Ovid Demaris, Dirty Business (New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1974),
12. See also James W. Coleman, The Criminal Elite, 3rd ed. (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1992), 6-8.
128. See "Companies' Payoffs in U.S. Come Under New Scrutiny New York Times
(16 March 1976), A-1.
129. See Ralph Nader and Mark Green, "Crime in the Suites," The New Republic,
(21) April, 1972), 19. The Maximum fine was raised to $55,000 in 1955;
however, this is still a pittance compared with the multimillion-dollar
profits of most large corporations.
130. Donald Cressey, "White Collar Subversives," Center Magazine 6
(November/December 1978), 44.
131. See "Job Hazards," Dollars and Sense 56 (April 1980), 9.
132. See, for example, Geis, 114.
133. Conyers, 293.
134. Thio, 85, 89.
135. For further discussion of these issues, see N. David Ermarm and Richard
J. Lundman, eds., Organizational Deviance, 4th ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993), 7-9. It is also true, as Jay Albanese asserts, that
much (but by no means all) white-collar crimes involve conspiracy in the
legal sense. A conspiracy involves an agreement between two or more people to
engage in criminal activity. For a detailed discussion see Jay Albanese,
White Collar Crime in America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995): 5,
13-23.
-----
de·vi·ant Pronunciation Key (dv-nt)
adj.
Differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society.
n.
One that differs from a norm, especially a person whose behavior and
attitudes differ from accepted social standards.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Middle English deviaunt, from Late Latin dvins, dviant- present participle of
dvire, to deviate. See deviate.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
devi·ance or devi·an·cy n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
deviance
n 1: an aberrant state or condition [syn: aberrance, aberrancy, aberration]
2: deviate behavior [syn: deviation]
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
-----
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