>> > The corporate scandals concern widespread theft of capital by corporate managers. These managers have used their position to transfer wealth from shareholders (owners of capital) into their own pockets by various fraudulent means.
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>In other words, class struggle between coordinators and capitalists.
"Class struggle" in the sense that corporate managers are struggling to become capitalists themselves. By stealing from existing owners of capital. If you want to dignify theft by calling it class struggle, then I guess this wave of corporate crime must indicate unprecedented levels of class struggle? The revolution must be just around the corner!
Corporate fraudsters as latter day Che Guevaras? Seems a long stretch, but you never know I suppose.
I have a sneaking sympathy for them sometimes, though often it is just a case of small capitalists stealing from big capitalists.
Still nice to see the underdog steal a bone though. Been a few very famous cases here over the years. Most recently, the OneTel collapse, which saw the Packer and Murdock boys get taken for several hundred million by the managers of the firm the rich kids invested in. The elder Packer (nick-named "the Goanna") was always suspicious, but it takes balls to swindle the Packers. You had to laugh when the naive boys indignantly demanded that their former executives "pay the money back." "Fat chance," came the reply.
Then there was Christopher Skase, who skipped the country with millions of dollars, leaving venal investors holding the liabilities of the media company. And who could forget the incomparable Alan Bond, who committed probably the biggest of all frauds, but who had to do a bit of jail time because of sloppiness. Now a penniless bankrupt, he lives in a huge mansion in Perth, Western Australia. ;-) Mind you, poor old Chris Skase had to finish his days as an exile on Majorca, pursued to the grave by Australian TV reporters. Bond served 3 or four years and can retire at home. Nice work if you can get it I say.
Anyhow, anyone gullible enough to invest money with an Australian Entrepeneur deserves everything they get I reckon.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas