The Blindness of the Great

It is quite remarkable, one might think, how chronic ignorance afflicts those in charge of organisations whose employees break the law to profit those organisations.  "We didn't know anything about it" - a mantra you will hear chanted in boardrooms in the banking sector about interest rate fixing, and, as the Leveson Inquiry has been told many times, also in the offices of News International.


They may even be telling the truth.  They may all have no idea how their companies work: no idea how profits bear no resemblance to performance. That might explain a lot.... 





O Blindheit der Großen! Sie wandeln wie Ewige
Groß auf gebeugten Nacken, sicher
Der gemieteten Fäuste, vertrauend
Der Gewalt, die so lang schon gedauert hat.
Aber lang ist nicht ewig.
O Wechsel der Zeiten! Du Hoffnung des Volks!


from Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle"