Schools, firms, and research labs have actualized high potential for incubating harm

Evidence

My answer is that their potential for the incubation of harm is high, and in many cases that we can cite, that potential has been actualized. Only one of the books we are examining answers this question directly. Kelman and Hamilton invite us to consider several examples in which corporations or other organizations have gone far down this road. Recall the design of the Ford Pinto, sold for years by a company in which many executives were aware that it had a gas tank likely to rupture in low-speed rear-end crashes, and thus incinerate its passengers. Recall Watergate or the Iran-Contra affair. Consider the silence of Morton Thiokol executives who were aware of the dangers to the space shuttle O-rings of a low-temperature launch. We could add to Kelman and Hamilton’s list. Think about executives who continued to have shipyard employees work with asbestos long after its carcinogenic properties were known to them, or government bureaucrats who kept uranium miners at work long after the dangers of that occupation were known to them. Consider any number of defense contractors who have delivered military weapons systems to the defense department with faked safety and effectiveness tests and substandard internal electronic components. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3994

Categorization

• SHARE: Worth sending to a colleague who teaches business ethics or organizational behavior — the aggregated list of organizational harm cases in one paragraph is a strong discussion-starter.
• ADDENDUM: Ties to the sacrifice/structural-violence theme: organizations quietly expose workers to lethal hazard as a normalized cost, echoing how stratified societies treat expendable labor.