Enron’s Human Rights Abuses

It seems people are surprised that some Enron employees are furiously shredding documents. Indeed, their shredding frenzy is such that private security have been hired to attempt to prevent this. Surely, people say, surely Enron and Andersen’s employees can’t be that dumb as to think they’ll get away with the shredding?

Well, yes and no. It’s true that a Federal judge has clarified a no-shredding policy. So people who shred run the risk of being found guilty of obstruction of justice. A reasonably serious crime, possibly carrying some jail time.

But shredding makes sense, of course, if the alternative was worse. These destroyed documents obviously carry some dreadfully incriminating information. Was it, I wonder, information about Enron’s human rights abuses? In the past, Enron safely had most politicians in its pocket so it could afford to shrug off allegations that its executives condoned torture, rape, and violence as legitimate corporate practices. Now though, with so many Congressional and Federal inquiries, all bets are off.

Enron always had an executive culture of lawlessness. It spread from the top downwards, a contempt for human dignity and a hubris that Enron’s executives were untouchable and their actions unquestionable. So it comes as no surprise that their executives eventually moved from physical violence against people in developing nations to financial violence against their domestic employees and stockholders. This is what unbridled, laissez-fair capitalism is all about.

And it’s all being spun masterfully.