Honor and Fraud

What Sophocles said here was widely accepted in the U.S. when I was a young man, say 50 years ago.  Today, you’ll find shockingly few Americans who actively live according to this rule.

This is why, to take an example, the Volkswagen emissions scandal was so astonishing.  When I was a consultant to the tech giants from the 1980s to the late 2000-aughts, anyone proposing that his company design its products with a hidden piece of software such that they passed government testing, but functioned differently in the real world would have been immediately fired and escorted off the premises.

Same for the guy who suggested that Wells Fargo create millions of fraudulent accounts, to steal huge sums of money from their customers.   Bye!

Now, corporations that bilk their customers are the rule, rather than the exception.

Sophocles, you were a good man.