Eugene Soltes is a business school professor who set out to investigate why white-collar criminals would risk everything they had worked for to commit crimes that at times did not even have a very big payoff. He decided to write to currently imprisoned white-collar criminals to ask them why they did it.

The book begins with very interesting background information about what white-collar crime is and how certain acts of business began to be regarded as crimes at all. Not until the stock market crash of 1929 did people more widely begin seeing business practices as harmful to society. Part of the reason this took so long is that the harm is hard to distinguish and the victims often remain unseen.

These elements also affect how the business people themselves view their actions. Many of the prisoners Soltes interviewed still did not see the harm in their actions. Another aspect involves the ease with which they were able to commit these crimes. They are often all on paper, and unlike violent acts, it can feel like they have done nothing wrong. Some even believe they are doing the right thing by being devious.

The author concludes that a number of factors contribute to white-collar crime. First is the need for others in the organization to question corrupt practices. A related factor is seeking disagreement, and the best judge of appropriateness often comes from those outside of the organization. When people’s beliefs are questioned, and they are confronted with another viewpoint, they often see the error of their ways. Another factor is ineffectual compliance and enforcement. The methods we use to deter crime are not often effective and the criminal is too far removed from the consequences to change their behaviors.

Eugene Soltes examines the problem of white collar crime--what makes some of the most successful and respected businessmen in the country (and the world, but his focus is mainly on the US) commit financial crimes that destroy their careers and land them in jail. He takes a hard and detailed look at how our views of white collar crime have evolved, as well as why white collar criminals do it.

The most fascinating parts of the book are the profiles of major white collar criminals, and the ways in which they justified their crimes to themselves. What I found a bit hard to swallow is the Enron story, in which the company officers are presented as succumbing to the desire to be clever and successful, with no sense that they were going to be hurting anyone. This would be easier to take if we didn't have audio of Enron traders laughing about "Grandma Millie."

So, please. I think there's a lot of good work here that Sontes has done. I think he does add a lot to our understanding of what lets successful businessmen (and he says that even now it really is almost all men who get caught in this trap) get drawn into white collar crime when they have no need to do it. I don't regret at all any of the time I spent listening to this audiobook, or the money spent on it.

But I'd like to sit down with him for a long chat about some parts of it.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. ( )