ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents case studies of asbestos compensation in Belgium, England, Italy, and the United States. It shows how three transnational asbestos firms contributed to the development of asbestos compensation through the lenses of their corporate structures, role in the emergence of the asbestos epidemic, and legal strategies that were implemented to avoid, minimize, or delay accountability for their tortious conduct. Scholars of the asbestos industry discuss compensation and devote some pages of their books to compensation issues. Asbestos disease is a man-made epidemic and thus a social event, as Pierre Bourdieu argued, as it can be construed as an 'inscription' of the social structure on human bodies. Asbestos disease thus offers an opportunity to investigate the capitalist tension between profits and equity and resulting social struggle between victims and corporate powers.
