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University of California Press

Industrial-Strength Denial

Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible, from the Slave Trade to Climate Change

by Barbara Freese (Author)
Price: $14.95 / £12.99
Publication Date: Apr 2020
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9780520968851
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Endowments:

About the Book

How corporate denial harms our world and continues to threaten our future.

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. Denial campaigns have let corporations continue dangerous practices that cause widespread suffering, death, and environmental destruction. And, by undermining social trust in science and government, corporate denial has made it harder for our democracy to function. 

Barbara Freese, an environmental attorney, confronted corporate denial years ago when cross-examining coal industry witnesses who were disputing the science of climate change. She set out to discover how far from reality corporate denial had led society in the past and what damage it had done. 

Her resulting, deeply-researched book is an epic 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. Industrial-Strength Denial warns that the corporate form gives people tremendous power to inadvertently cause harm while making it especially hard for them to recognize and feel responsible for that harm.

About the Author

Barbara Freese is the author of Coal: A Human History, a New York Times Notable Book. She is an environmental attorney and a former Minnesota assistant attorney general. Her interest in corporate denial was sparked by cross-examining coal industry witnesses disputing the science of climate change. She lives in St. Paul.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Dangerous Phenomenon

1. A “More Pleasing Representation”: The Alternate
   Reality Crafted by the Slave Lobby
2. “A Wonderful Stimulant”: Radium, Risk, and
   Responsibility
3. “The Nut behind the Wheel”: Carmakers Avoiding
   Blame for Highway Deaths
4. “How Wrong One Can Be”: Bias, Tribalism, and
   Leaded Gasoline
5. “Our Free Enterprise System Is at Stake”: CFCs,
   Ideology, and Manipulated Uncertainty
6. “Psychological Crutches”: Tobacco’s Mass Production
   of Denial
7. “Bottom Line. Nothing Else Matters”: The Financial
   Crisis and a Culture of Exploitation
8. A “Deceitful, Hysterical, Out-of-Control Rampage”:
   Fossil Fuels, Climate Denial, and Distrust Building
   
   Conclusion: Shifting the Social Norm toward
   the Public Interest

Acknowledgments
Notes
Major Works Cited in Notes
Index

Reviews

"A detailed look at how corporations faced with evidence that they’re ruining the earth have found a way to distort the truth and pump out propaganda that supports their business."
Joe Rogan Experience
“An exhaustive chronicle of white-collar true crime.”
 
Los Angeles Review of Books

"Succeeds in providing a fascinating, well-documented, intelligently structured and morally instructive account of some cleverly selected and patently egregious cases of precisely the kind of ‘self-deception’ and ‘hypocrisy’ that . . . have been preoccupying Western ethicists for generations."  

European Legacy
"A must-read for anyone wanting to understand the truth about corporate-created untruths, this engaging, painstakingly researched, and elegantly written book is crucial for helping us see through profit-driven narratives designed with the explicit aim of distorting and deceiving. Industrial-Strength Denial reveals the cynicism, manipulation, and hypocrisy of corporations seeking to rationalize patently destructive (though profitable) practices, such as slavery or selling toxic chemicals, tobacco, and fossil fuels."—Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power

"How much easier it would be to change the world 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 of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Media

Barbara Freese discusses Industrial-Strength Denial with Joe Rogan