| Abstrakt: |
This article presents a study of criminogenic market forces. Insufficient attention has been focused by sociologists on the extent to which market structure, that is, the economic power available to certain corporations in concentrated industries-may generate criminal conduct. In the studies of the electrical industry conspiracy, for example, sociologists concentrated on the noncriminal backgrounds and the prestigious positions of the corporate officials who had engaged in the slippery conspiracy to violate the anti-trust laws. Other sociologists concerned themselves with the problems of individual versus corporate guilt, and the extent to which the officials involved were aware of the illegal character of their price-fixing activities. It has been pointed out that to meet with competition had become common and had gone on for so many years that some individuals in the electrical corporations had lost sight of its illegality. Nonetheless, the gentlemen conspirators went to great lengths to avoid detection, using blank stationery, adopting assumed names, meeting secretly in motels to rig bids according to the phase of the moon, and using other cloak and dagger tactics. |
