INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH DENIAL: EIGHT STORIES OF CORPORATIONS DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE, FROM THE SLAVE TRADE TO CLIMATE CHANGE
May 2020, from the University of California Press
Corporations faced with proof that they are hurting people or the planet have a long history of denying evidence, blaming victims, complaining of witch hunts, attacking their critics’ motives, and otherwise rationalizing their harmful activities.
This book shows how far from reality corporate denial has taken people, and what harm it has done. It is a tour through eight campaigns of denial waged by industries defending the slave trade, radium consumption, unsafe cars, leaded gasoline, ozone-destroying chemicals, tobacco, the investment products that caused the financial crisis, and the fossil fuels destabilizing our climate. Some of the denials are appalling (slave ships are festive). Some are absurd (nicotine is not addictive). Some are dangerously comforting (natural systems prevent ozone depletion). Together they reveal much about the group dynamics of delusion and deception.
Industrial-Strength Denial delves into the larger social dramas surrounding these denials, including how people outside the industries fought back using evidence and the tools of democracy. It also explores what it is about the corporation itself that reliably promotes such denial, drawing on psychological research into how cognition and morality are altered by tribalism, power, conflict, anonymity, social norms, market ideology, and of course, money.
"How much easier the world would change if it weren't for the endless, organized lying of companies that make their money from the indefensible. This is such a useful chronicle for anyone trying to understand the shape of our world."—Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
“This book’s originality is in Freese’s use of psychological theory and insights to explain corporate behavior that seems simply venal or self-serving.”—Gerald Markowitz, Distinguished Professor of History, John Jay College and Graduate Center, City University of New York.