When fallen Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling recently entered a federal courthouse in Houston, handcuffed and flanked by federal marshals, it may have seemed to the casual observer like the beginning of the end in a sordid corporate episode. At long last, this bogeyman of white-collar crime had been flushed from his mansion to face three dozen counts of fraud and other crimes.
Yet, as difficult as it may be to fathom the billions of dollars spirited away by the larcenists within Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, perhaps it’s just a matter of scale. When it comes to cutting ethical corners, there is no "us and them."
We, from the upper echelons of privilege to the wide ranks of the working class, have become a nation of cheaters.
So says David Callahan, author of the new book "The Cheating Culture" (Harcourt, $26). The tax evader. The workplace pilferer. The cautious embezzler. The resume fabricator. The digital file swapper. These are some of the scammers among us, Callahan says, and they’re everywhere.
"There are big questions as to whether this stuff is more common or whether it’s more often caught these days," Callahan said. "I came to the conclusion, based on the available evidence, that there is more cheating in certain key areas today than there was in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, which was my main point of reference."
Political chicanery, although pervasive, represents a different sort of ethical lapse, Callahan said. Same goes for romantic cheating.
"By cheating I mean breaking the rules to get ahead academically, professionally or financially," he writes. "Some of this cheating involves violating the law; some does not. Either way, most of it is by people who, on the whole, view themselves as upstanding members of society."
As the stakes of success rise, the reasoning goes, so do the temptations to cheat. Add to that the sometimes slim chances of being caught and the perception that people at the top are getting away with it, and the result is a system that seems to be rigged to make suckers of the honest.
"There’s a big and growing gap between the life that people see as the norm — a six-figure affluence — and the life that most people can actually achieve. People look for ways to close the gap," Callahan said.
As an example, he begins "The Cheating Culture" with an episode of dishonesty during the Sept. 11 tragedy. When chaos gripped Lower Manhattan, some members of a New York credit union discovered that, because of a computer error, they could withdraw unlimited amounts from cash machines. Rather than cut off its members, the credit union trusted them to use their ATM cards responsibly.
As many as 4,000 members overdrew their accounts, some by as much as $10,000. Some of the money was returned, but after $15 million remained missing, the credit union called in the authorities to make arrests.
If TV shows such as "Survivor" are any indicator, then backstabbing is standard procedure in reality. But cheating, by nature, is hard to quantify. However, academic dishonesty is one trend that has been closely scrutinized.
For example, in a 2002 survey of 4,500 high school students, Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe found that 75 percent engage in serious cheating. More than half the students had plagiarized work from the Internet.
Like an athlete who insists that by not doping he’s at a competitive disadvantage, many students consider some sort of cheating to be a prerequisite to succeed in high-pressure academics.
Question the music fan who downloads thousands of songs without paying for them and he or she is likely to say, "That’s what the record companies get for swindling artists and overcharging me for CDs."
But for Lou Marcoux, that kind of justification doesn’t hold up. "Stealing is stealing," he said.
It’s Marcoux’s job to thwart a type of content piracy that predates the Internet: cable television theft. Marcoux is security manager for Cox Communications in Rhode Island.
The cable TV industry says that the 10 percent of American homes that steal services are bilking the providers out of $6.6 billion a year.
Like most morally questionable scenarios, cable theft comes with its own levels of transgression. For example, if you move into an apartment, discover free ESPN on tap and neglect to get legitimate with the company, then you’re guilty of "passive theft."
If a Cox auditor discovers this petty offense, the first-time offender is forgiven. But purchase an unsanctioned cable box off the Internet, and you could end up in court.
And who are these pirates?
"It’s usually the husband’s bright idea to get the box. A lot of times I’ll get the wife calling to ask questions (about the plan’s legality)," Marcoux says.
Cornell University professor Jeffrey Hancock’s research on lying reveals that it’s part of our social psychology. Hancock asked himself when people lie to each other most. During face-to-face conversations? On the telephone? In e-mail messages? He recruited students at Cornell to keep a diary of their lies.
"It’s not until you start recording them that you realize that you’re lying every day," said Hancock, whose interest in studying lies began when he was a customs officer on the Canadian border.
About a quarter of the Cornell students’ social interactions involved a lie. The highest rate of deception happened on the telephone, followed by face-to-face interactions and, to a much lesser extent, e-mail. Consciously or subconsciously, Hancock said, people know that putting lies in writing is more likely to get them caught.
The majority of our daily lies, Hancock says, are little and white, often delivered for the benefit of the receiver. How often do we compliment a haircut or an outfit that is less than flattering?
More troubling, Hancock said, are lies told to benefit the teller. Fabrications about their whereabouts, backgrounds or motives may be used to for personal gain. It’s darker lies such as these that may set the stage for deeper ethical offenses.
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