Legal Rape

We are missing the lesson of the current British outrage over Murdoch just as we missed the lesson of the financial crisis in America.

Was the real crime in England that employees of the News of the World illegally hacked the cell phone of a missing girl? Was the real financial crime in America illegal acts such as Ponzi schemes or insider trading? The answer is no in both cases.

The real crime in England was legal, not illegal; it was that one man had the power to influence large parts of the British parliament and was credited with a major influence in electing whichever government he favored. No one in government dared to cross him until an emotion-provoking illegal act unleashed a public outcry. That outcry has, at least temporarily, liberated the members of Parliament from their fear of being smeared by Murdoch's newspapers if they dared to be hostile to his interests or beliefs.

Was the real crime in America illegal acts? No. Despite the press devoted to Madoff, the real crime, here as in England, was legal. Selling subprime mortgages to people who could never pay them back was legal. Rating agencies certifying to the high quality of the resulting worthless securities was legal. The whole web of interacting CDO's was legal. It was the legal, though strongly unethical, actions of a powerful Wall Street dedicated to self-enrichment at any price that brought down the U.S. economy. And, though we are still far from recovering from that disaster, the power of money has prevented any fundamental reform of the financial sector.

In both countries, the real crime is the concentration of power that allows these things to happen.
~ from The Real Crime: Concentration of Power by Prof. Ralph Gomory ~

This very same point has been made by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Matt Taibbi in Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America, Joel Bakan in The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Power and Profit, and David Cay Johnson in Free Lunch. While members of the mainstream media and the general public focus inordinate attention on illegal acts and practices, the legal rape of society is the more pernicious crime!