ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the corporate disregard for the welfare of people, which involves the abuse of consumers, workers, and society itself. It explains that the profit-maximizing behaviors practiced by corporations under monopoly capitalism are hazardous to our individual and collective health and therefore constitute another manifestation of elite deviance. The chapter examines four manifestations of corporate deviance that jeopardize individual health: unsafe products, food pollution, tobacco products, and dangerous working conditions. It focuses on two problems that society faces from various corporate activities: the waste of natural resources and pollution of the environment. The chapter also explains the fundamental flaw of capitalism. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports that several bad records in consumer product safety areas were set during fiscal year 2005, including: most recalls of defective consumer products; and most civil penalties handed out for industry failure to report hazardous products.
