ABSTRACT
Frank Pearce is an incredibly original scholar, making major contributions to the study of corporate crime, classical and contemporary social theory (including the study of Marx, Foucault and his major rethinking of Durkheim) and his other more specific contributions to rethinking realism, risk and ideology. 1 In this vein, I have sought for this chapter to make a contribution that achieves several different goals: first, to build upon the themes that Pearce addresses in his Crimes of the Powerful (henceforth, CotP) (1976). Second, to develop a contribution that builds on the knowledge and insights I have derived from conversations with Frank Pearce. Third, to develop a chapter that not only speaks specifically to Pearce’s work, but that also aims to move the conversation forward. In the spirit of agonistic, but respectful, social theory, this chapter works to realize these aims by exploring themes that Pearce has addressed in his various works beginning with CotP (Pearce 1976, 1993, 2001a; Pearce and Tombs 1996, 1998, 2012) at the intersection of corporations, crime, irresponsibility, and social harm.
