Corruption in Corporate Culture

"Corruption in Corporate Culture" argues that there has been a serious breakdown in the systems designed to ensure fair dealings in the self-governing and self-policing worlds of U.S. business and finance. Contending that a war of containment has been launched to conceal both the repercussions of corporate corruption and government complicity in it, this special issue of "Social Text" evaluates these problems on a systemic level, as well as focusing on immediate cases. Addressing several recent high-profile scandals, contributors examine both the short- and the long-term ramifications of corporate corruption: the means by which Martha Stewart has been used as an icon and a scapegoat in the ImClone case while broader critical issues have failed to receive the attention they demand; the divisive ways in which the antifeminist Independent Women's Forum - along with other neo-con organizations and pundits - have moved the debate regarding the deregulation of the financial services sector far to the right of the far right; and, the collapse of Enron and what it means for corporate governance. It also examines the global implications of U.S. corporate corruption; the confusion over public and private business transactions in Argentina; the moral panic ensuing from the random violence caused by the Washington, D. C.-area snipers precisely as the U.S. was launching a war on Iraq because of its supposed weapons of mass destruction; and the emergence of a new business model and icon, the hiphop mogul. The contributors include: Peter Bratsis; David M. Brennan; Jane Marcus-Delgado; Randy Martin; Nancy Shaw; Ella Shohat; Christopher Holmes Smith; Barbara Spindel; and, Susan Willis.