Twenty percent of new companies fail because of fraud perpetrated by owners and top managers. People steal where they shop and more losses come from INTERNAL sources, than from customers. Also, people steal at their own level: stock clerks steal items; vice presidents steal budgets.

White collar crime was differentiated to bring to light to the academic community that crime is not (just) tough guys on street corners stealing purses. That was a class-based, ideology driven view of working class people by people who were themselves not working class. They did not see criminality in their own peers and neighbors -- or in themselves.

Academic fraud and misconduct in scientific research are also white collar crimes.
1.20% of Scientists are Crooks here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...

2. Misconduct in Science and Research here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2011/...

3. Forgery and Fraud in Numismatics here:
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...

It took two sittings, but I finished the presentation with a few notes. Roger Donway is not a good speaker. He read a manuscript. He mumbled and swallowed key words. Also, he did not do well in the Q&A. I can relate to that. While I think that I am a good speaker and have videos to prove it, I do not think well on my feet. I need to prepare. So, I give him some margin, though, again, an accomplished public speaker would have been much better at that.

More substantially, Roger Donway conflates several intellectual streams in misunderstanding the origins of the term"white collar crime" and its present application and misapplication. Let me say right off that he ignored - as the earliest researchers did - GOVERNMENT crime including both "state-sanctioned crime" and "state crime" itself. Criminologists now include those as white collar crimes.

The importance of class cannot be overlooked in understanding the genesis of "white collar crime." Then as now the assumption was that crime is a problem of the lower classes, caused by poverty and a lack of civilizing education and control. Upper class people were assumed to be literally above crime, which is why the Sanford White Scandal and similar events commanded headlines. E. A. Ross, Edwin Sutherland, and others got criminology out of that presumption. Donway mentioned Ross's own racism regarding the Japanese. Again, at that time AS NOW many people assume that crime is racial: 60% of the men in prison are Black; obviously African-Americans tend toward crime. YOU as an Objectivist would argue through that logical fallacy, but many conservatives are given to it, even today. 100 years ago, it was considered scientific truth as published by Cesare Lombrusco and many others -- and TODAY some still seek "genetic" explanations, not all of which seem invalid, but which, nonetheless flatly contradict the strictly rationalist free-will theory of the "classical school" of crime. (I presented Ayn Rand's theory of Evasion as a more complete explanation of free will to my undergraduate senior class in criminology theory.)

It is also true that Sutherland was not a professional criminologist when he first wrote his book. No one was. Famous scientists in previous ages held degrees in medicine, law, or theology, there being no such thing as a university degree in biochemistry.

From about 1850, most police officers were political appointees rewarded for drumming up votes, which is why the police and voting booths are both organized by "precincts." The Era of Professional Policing began with August Vollmer at Berkeley, California. He got the University to create the first degree program in criminology, but, he of course, was nothing but an army veteran, not a professional criminologist.

Donway confuses the role of academic sociology with the mechanisms of justice - something which they might also like to do. Even if no legal trial takes place, you yourself have every right and moral responsibility to identify a HARM when you discover one. "Taxation is theft" but no one goes to prison for it because no one comes to trial for it. But it is indeed a white collar state crime.

In positing the "differential association" theory of crime, Roger Donway revealed - but without stating it explicitly - that Sutherland was only describing himself: he was socialized to be constrained. It is true by observation that children adopt the values of their homes. But not all do. Therein blossom many other theories - over 50 - to explain good people from bad homes and bad people from good ones.

As for business trust and the ethos of reputation, I certainly take Donway's point - and his point of view. But regarding the other railroad presidents whom the railroad president would not trust, I know a similar story. Venture capitalist Tom Perkins was discussing an opportunity with his partner, Eugene Kleiner. Said Kleiner of the entrepreneur: "I would trust him with my life, but not with my money." You don't have to be a Christian socialist professor of sociology to get the message there.

Contrary to Roger Donway, embezzlement and fraud were not always crimes. I cite a famous case I believe from 1805 in which a Bank of England employee accepted a 5-pound note from a depositor and put it in his pocket. The jury found him not guilty because the note was never actually the property of the Bank of England. So Parliament wrote a new law. Just to say...

Also, Roger Donway opened by alluding to a claim that he implied was invalid about unsafe working conditions and the reformers of the Progressive Era. In fact, Ayn Rand suggested that offering an unsafe workplace would be a crime in a capitalist society whether or not an injury actually occurred. (See "Objectively Speaking" pg 213-214.)

All in all, while I appreciate Roger Donway's minor thesis about the injustice of modern laws against so-called "insider trading" he failed to establish the foundation he sought.