As the presidential team meets in Waco to repristinate the face of capitalism, signs of difficulty at a cultural level are everywhere. The Wall Street Journal informs us that defense attorneys are having a difficult time finding jurors who are unaffected by the desire to damage any defendant with a corporate background. In one recent case, a poll was taken of 50 prospective jurors. They were asked to agree or not to the statement, "Corporate executives will lie to increase their profits." More than 50 percent agreed.
It is suggested that what we might call Enron Inc. has had an analogous effect on American views of business as Watergate had on views of government. That is persuasive, but it pays to remind ourselves that government infidelities have means of ablution in the political world. Whatever the demoralization brought on by Watergate, it was pretty well expunged by the resignation of President Nixon, followed by the Democratic whiplash of November l974.
Nobody can confidently say what would have happened to Bill Clinton if, a few months after pledging to the American people an untruth, he had had to run for re-election. The Clinton episode certainly told the country that the highest official in the land can continue as chief enforcer of the law even after spectacularly traducing the law. There are those who believe that inasmuch as the Clinton case was sex-oriented, coming to terms with it marked an American cultural pubescence. Everybody in sight remarked at the time that what Clinton did would not have received more than a few sticks of type if done in Europe by a chief executive.
But there is no dramatic episode of any kind that business can contrive, or engage in, which would alter the disposition of the juror to believe that corporate executives "will lie" in order to increase their profits. Moreover, the great caterwaulers will do everything they can to press their point, which is, essentially, that capitalism is inherently corrupt.
The Nation magazine hasn't been so happy about the corporate scene since the Great Depression. Back then, the editors could innocently wonder about Marxist alternatives. That doesn't so much work any more, since the Marxist model has had its own setbacks. But the library of derision is enormously enlivened, and we cannot be surprised that the typical juror, reading in that morning's paper about the latest corporate thief, holds the business culture as untrustworthy.