By the Corporations, for the Corporations

Let's get this straight: Equifax makes the mistake, but we all have to pay their bill? Equifax had sloppy cut rate cyber security to maximize profits, and as a result millions of consumers will have be diligent for the rest of their lives, investing time and money (paying companies like Equifax!) to make sure their credit rating does not get hurt, and their economic identity does not get stolen. This may result in losses for Equifax, which could result in layoffs of thousands of workers, and perhaps even the end of the company in a worst-case scenario.

All the while, the executives who made the decisions to put profits over security will still get their bonuses. Hell, even if the company folded or they were terminated, their severance packages would still leave them wealthier in a five years than they are today. And certainly no one would see jail time, except perhaps some low level executive who was only following orders. The same is true for the Wells Fargo scandal of opening millions of fake accounts, not to mention the 2008 crash, or basically any white collar scandal you can name. The high level executives always come out wealthier (even when fired!) while the consumers and the workers pay the real costs.


And furthermore, huge multinational corporations can get away with it, but local entrepreneurs would be shut down and arrested. If the deli down the street was caught selling a few dozen credit card numbers and customer addresses, they would be jailed and the business would be shuttered. But Equifax can basically give away tens of millions of customer identities and social security numbers, and I guarantee you nothing will happen to put a dent in the bank accounts or lifestyle of the people in charge.

This is not an aberration of our economic system. This IS our economic system. It is doing precisely what it has been engineered to do by lobbying and legislation over the course of a century. It is not an accident. It is designed to "fail" in such a way that every failure shifts cost and burden onto the workers and consumers, while increasing profitability for those who benefit from such "failures". For instance, even if Equifax ceases to exist after this, companies like Equifax, run by people who are like (or perhaps identical to) those who run Equifax will benefit in the long term. Millions will have to rely on their services to protect them from the effects of what Equifax did. It's an almost perfect plot to create and maintain customer base. And once you learn to spot it in this scandal, you can see it repeated with infinite variation in other industries.

We the people need a robust system of legal protections that tilt the economy back in favor of the worker, the consumer, and the local entrepreneur, and away from the huge multinationals and the oligarchs who run them. We can either be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Or we can be a government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. But we can't be both.