Actuarial Murder and Other Diffuse Acts of Violence

The most devastating acts of violence often leave no fingerprints. They happen through policy decisions, institutional practices, and systemic choices that diffuse responsibility while maximizing harm. My journey to understanding this began in an unexpected place—wrestling with how religious convictions should inform our response to systemic injustice.

Growing up in an evangelical Christian context, I spent years justifying political disengagement. I told myself that since Jesus said “the poor will always be with you,” and since the world would have troubles until the end of time, deep engagement with systemic issues was pointless. True political change would only come through evangelism, I reasoned, because once people became Christians, their hearts would be changed, and they would vote for compassion, justice, and mercy. Ironically, the religious context I grew up in actually bred profound moral cowardice dressed up as spiritual wisdom. When I really engaged with Scripture, I found a God obsessed with social justice. The prophets rail against systemic exploitation. Jesus's ministry constantly challenged power structures. The early church was radically communal. The command to love our neighbor wasn't limited by national borders or political convenience, as shown by the parable of the Good Samaritan.

This matters because the most insidious forms of violence happen through exactly this kind of responsibility laundering. When we pretend that systemic choices don't carry moral weight, when we act as if institutional distance diminishes rather than magnifies ethical obligations, we enable devastating harm while maintaining plausible deniability. Terry Pratchett captured this concept perfectly in Going Postal, through a conversation between his protagonist Moist von Lipwig and a golem named Mr. Pump:

“Do you understand what I'm saying?” shouted Moist. “You can't just go around killing people!”

“Why not? You do.” The golem lowered his arm.

“What?” snapped Moist. “I do not! Who told you that?”

“I worked it out. You have killed two point three three eight people,” said the golem calmly.

“I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be—all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!”

“No, you have not. But you have stolen, embezzled, defrauded and swindled without discrimination, Mr. Lipvig. You have ruined businesses and destroyed jobs. When banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve. Your actions have taken money from those who had little enough to begin with. In a myriad small ways you have hastened the deaths of many. You do not know them. You did not see them bleed. But you snatched bread from their mouths and tore clothes from their backs. For sport, Mr. Lipvig. For sport. For the joy of the game.”

Consider how differently our society treats violence: A physical assault is prosecuted as a crime. A policy decision that leaves thousands without healthcare access is called fiscal responsibility. A corporate strategy that destroys livelihoods is praised as efficient management. The greater the scope of harm, the more we distance ourselves from its moral weight.

In our interconnected world, suggesting that we can limit our circle of moral consideration isn't just ethically bankrupt—it's a form of willful self-deception. Our economic policies create or destroy livelihoods across borders. Our environmental decisions affect communities worldwide. Our immigration policies literally determine who lives and dies. Those with the power to make such choices don't get to pretend their responsibility stops at arbitrary boundaries.

The classical concept of ordo amoris—“ordered love”—is often misused to justify this moral abdication. Some interpret it as permission to focus inward: family first, then church, then perhaps some charitable giving, with systemic issues left for others to handle. But this fundamentally inverts its meaning. Ordo amoris isn't about building concentric walls of exclusion—it's about understanding how moral responsibility scales with power and influence.

Consider how this actually scales: A parent has deep obligations to their children. A teacher has broader but still significant obligations to their students. A corporate leader's decisions affect thousands of families. A policymaker's choices can devastate or uplift entire populations. To suggest that those with the most power should constrain their moral consideration to the narrowest circle isn't just backwards—it's a deliberate evasion of responsibility.

Mr. Pump's cold arithmetic—“two point three three eight people”—reflects a truth we'd rather not face: violence scales exponentially with institutional power, while our sense of moral responsibility diminishes with each degree of separation. We've built entire systems of governance and commerce around this inverse relationship, allowing us to inflict maximum harm while maintaining maximum distance from its consequences.

The spiritual implications are equally stark. When Christians cite Jesus's words about the poor to justify political disengagement, they're not just misinterpreting scripture—they're actively participating in systemic violence while maintaining a veneer of spiritual purity. The Gospels don't just call us to individual acts of charity—they demand engagement with the systems that perpetuate poverty and injustice. The Good Samaritan didn't just help an injured stranger—he committed resources, time, and ongoing care while challenging the systems that made such violence common.

This isn't just a theological issue—it's a fundamental problem of how we conceptualize responsibility in complex systems. When harm is diffused across institutional layers, we treat it as if it were diluted rather than amplified. A local loan shark who drives a family into bankruptcy might face criminal charges. A bank that systematically targets vulnerable communities with predatory loans receives government bailouts. The mathematics of responsibility seem to run backwards—the more lives you affect, the less accountable you become.

Moist von Lipwig's defense—“I have never laid a finger on anyone”—echoes through corporate boardrooms and policy meetings. It's the same logic that lets executives sleep soundly after decisions that devastate communities, that allows politicians to frame austerity measures as necessary evils rather than active choices with predictable casualties. We've built entire frameworks of language and law around obscuring this relationship between institutional power and systemic harm.

But what if we took Mr. Pump's actuarial approach seriously? What if we traced the causal chains of our institutional decisions with the same rigor we apply to criminal investigations? A single act of physical violence leaves evidence—witnesses, wounds, weapons. Systemic violence leaves spreadsheets, policy documents, and mortality statistics. The evidence might be more abstract, but the casualties are just as real.

This isn't about assigning individual guilt—it's about recognizing that our current frameworks for moral and legal responsibility break down catastrophically at scale. We need new ways of thinking about accountability that match the scope of institutional power. Because right now, we're living in a world where the most efficient forms of violence are also the most invisible, where the greatest harms are perpetrated not through malice but through carefully maintained indifference.

The Paradox of Institutional Harm

Consider how differently we treat these scenarios:

  • a person directly stealing $1000 from a vulnerable elderly couple
  • a banker approving predatory loan terms that will extract $10,000 from dozens of elderly couples
  • a banking executive maintaining policies that will extract millions from thousands of elderly couples.

Our moral intuitions and legal frameworks treat these with decreasing severity, even as the actual harm increases dramatically. We've created a perverse incentive where the most damaging actions carry the least personal moral weight.

Our society's moral intuitions break down when confronting institutional harm. We readily condemn the thief who directly steals from an elderly couple, understanding the immediate connection between action and harm. Yet when a banker designs predatory loan terms targeting elderly customers, our moral clarity wavers. And when an executive implements policies systematically exploiting thousands of seniors, our frameworks for accountability nearly disappear entirely.

This inverse relationship between scale of harm and perceived responsibility creates perverse incentives. The more damage an action causes, the more likely it is to be viewed as a mere business decision rather than a moral choice. We've built systems that reward the diffusion of responsibility, even as technology and interconnection amplify the impact of our institutional decisions.

In the real world though, the most damaging actions are often the most diffuse.

On December 4th, 2024, the CEO of United Healthcare Brian Thompson was shot dead outside of the Hilton Hotel in New York City.

Multiple news outlets reported that police officials said there were three words—"deny," "defend" and "depose"—written on shell casings found at the scene, in reference to the company's practices of denying prior authorization and claims to force patients to go through arbitration. In the case of United Healthcare, these practices raised their profits from $12 billion in 2021 to $16 billion in 2023.

Great for shareholders, not so great for patients. In the end, not so great for Brian Thompson either. The huge media coverage of his murder was a testament to the problem we face– the legal system was well-equipped to prosecute the killer, but not so great at holding United Healthcare accountable for the harm they caused. Ultimately, someone felt that retributive justice was the only path forward. Interestingly, social support for the killer was overwhelming. The general public intuitively understood that United Healthcare, and by proxy, Thompson, was at fault, despite the inability of the legal system to bring effective punishment or prevention of future harm.

In the corporate world, the layers of responsibility in decision-making are complex. When a healthcare company adjusts its claim denial algorithms to be slightly more aggressive, no single person "decides" to deny life-saving care. The data scientists optimize for efficiency, the managers meet their performance targets, and the executives satisfy shareholders. Everyone involved can point to metrics showing they're doing their jobs well. Yet, people die because of these choices. Studies show that insurance claim denials can delay or prevent necessary medical care in up to 24% of cases, with the most vulnerable patients being disproportionately affected. Harvard researchers found that approximately 45,000 Americans die annually just from lack of health coverage, while AARP estimates about 200 million claims are rejected every year. The analyst who tweaks the algorithm may never see the faces of affected families, but their keystrokes have more impact than someone committing direct violence.

This isn't about individual malice—it's about systemic priorities. Insurance companies require extensive training just to understand their complex claims systems, and they implement policies like mandatory physical therapy periods before approving surgeries, knowing that many patients will simply give up rather than navigate the process. Some companies have even been found to retroactively cancel thousands of policies when clients filed claims for costly treatments, often citing minor application errors as justification. While half of denied claims are eventually paid when appealed, this process can take longer than critically ill patients have left to live—as in the case of Malcolm MacDougall, who died while fighting his insurance company's denials of his cancer treatment, despite having paid all his premiums under the Affordable Care Act.

The executive who signs off on these policies might rationalize it as "market forces at work," but their signature carries more moral weight than most explosive actions we traditionally judge as severe moral failures.

The problem isn't confined to corporate settings. When a school board member stays silent as their district maintains policies that disproportionately punish certain groups of students, they're not merely passive observers. Their silence is an active choice that shapes hundreds of young lives. The "neutral" position of maintaining status quo discipline policies has decades-long ripple effects through families and communities.

The corporate world exemplifies this diffusion of moral responsibility. A data scientist optimizes an algorithm for "efficiency," never seeing the families affected by their code. A middle manager implements metrics that incentivize harmful shortcuts, calling it "performance management." An executive approves policies they know will lead to preventable deaths, labeling it "market necessity."

Each role maintains plausible deniability through institutional distance. Yet the analyst's keystrokes often have more impact than direct violence. The manager's metrics shape more lives than personal cruelty ever could. The executive's signature affects more families than most acts we consider serious crimes.

This isn't about condemning individuals—it's about recognizing how our frameworks for moral responsibility have failed to keep pace with institutional power. When we can clearly trace how decisions lead to harm, claims of institutional distance become a form of moral abdication.

The False Shield of Fiduciary Duty

When corporate leaders need to justify difficult decisions, they often hide behind a seemingly iron-clad defense: "We had no choice. Our fiduciary duty to shareholders required it." This shield gets raised to defend everything from layoffs during profitable years to environmental destruction in the name of cost-cutting. But this common refrain represents a fundamental misunderstanding of both the legal and ethical principles at play.

Two Tales of Duty: The Doctor and the Dog-Sitter

Consider a doctor treating a patient with a rare condition. The doctor has a clear fiduciary duty to this patient—to provide the best possible care. But imagine if this doctor decided that this duty meant they should steal experimental drugs from a research lab, or divert all hospital resources to this one case, leaving other patients without care. We'd immediately recognize this as a perversion of medical ethics. The duty to one patient doesn't override the fundamental principle of "first, do no harm."

Similarly, imagine asking a friend to watch your dog while you're away. You'd expect them to make decisions in your pet's best interest—that's essentially what a fiduciary duty is. But what if your friend decided that since their only duty was to your dog, they could steal other people's pet food to feed them? Or let your dog attack other animals because it made your dog happy? You'd likely say they'd completely misunderstood what "taking care of your dog" meant.

These analogies capture how corporate America has twisted the concept of fiduciary duty—a legal promise to act in someone's best interest when they've trusted you with their wellbeing. They've transformed it from a shield meant to protect vulnerable interests into a weapon that justifies harming everyone else.

The Legal Reality: A Complex Evolution

The story of fiduciary duty in American corporate law reveals a fascinating evolution that's often oversimplified in corporate boardrooms. Let's trace this development through several pivotal cases:

Dodge v. Ford (1919): The Case That Started It All

The Dodge brothers, significant shareholders in Ford Motor Company, sued Henry Ford over his explicit plan to prioritize social good over profit maximization. Ford had announced his intention to lower car prices and expand production facilities to employ more workers, rather than distribute the company's excess cash as dividends. While this might sound admirable today, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a corporation's primary concern should be shareholder profits. However - and this is crucial - the court also acknowledged that incidental humanitarian expenditure was acceptable as long as it had some relationship to shareholder benefit.

Shlensky v. Wrigley (1968): Breaking New Ground

This case marked a significant shift in judicial thinking. When shareholders sued the Chicago Cubs' ownership for refusing to install lights at Wrigley Field, they argued that the decision cost them profitable night games. Philip K. Wrigley, the majority owner, maintained that baseball was a daytime sport and that night games would harm the surrounding neighborhood. The Illinois Appellate Court's decision was groundbreaking: they ruled that leadership could consider the impact on the surrounding community, effectively saying that boards can weigh non-shareholder interests. This created a crucial precedent for considering stakeholder interests beyond pure profit.

Key Modern Developments

Several subsequent cases have further refined this understanding:

  • Paramount v. Time (1989): The Delaware Supreme Court ruled that boards can reject a tender offer based on their long-term strategic vision, even if it means declining short-term profit maximization. This decision significantly strengthened the "business judgment rule," which protects directors' decisions made in good faith.

  • Unocal Corp. v. Mesa Petroleum (1985): The court established that boards can consider the impact of corporate decisions on "constituencies" other than shareholders, including creditors, customers, employees, and the community.

  • eBay v. Newmark (2010): While the court criticized Craigslist's explicit rejection of profit maximization, it still affirmed that companies can pursue non-profit-maximizing strategies if they can be rationalized as ultimately benefiting shareholders.

The Modern Framework

Today's legal landscape, shaped by these decisions, gives corporate leaders significant latitude through the "business judgment rule." This doctrine protects board decisions made with:

  • Due care (proper investigation and consideration)
  • Good faith
  • A rational belief that the action serves the corporation's best interests

Importantly, "best interests" has been interpreted broadly enough to include:

  • Long-term sustainability over short-term profits
  • Investment in employee welfare and community relationships
  • Environmental stewardship
  • Brand and reputational considerations

This framework essentially means that while corporations can't entirely abandon profit-seeking, they have significant legal room to pursue strategies that balance multiple stakeholder interests. The common corporate refrain that fiduciary duty requires ruthless profit maximization is thus more a choice than a legal necessity.

Beyond Self-Regulation: The Need for Structural Constraints

The corporate world's interpretation of fiduciary duty as trumping all other moral considerations reveals a fundamental flaw in expecting ethical self-regulation from profit-driven entities. While we can draw parallels to other professions with fiduciary obligations, the crucial difference lies in their regulatory frameworks:

  • Doctors face oversight from medical boards, malpractice law, and hospital ethics committees
  • Lawyers answer to bar associations and are bound by strict rules of professional conduct
  • Trustees operate under court supervision and detailed trust law

These professions don't rely on individual moral judgment alone—they're constrained by robust regulatory frameworks, professional oversight bodies, and specific legal obligations. The corporate world, by contrast, has successfully lobbied against similar constraints while cynically wielding "fiduciary duty" as a shield against ethical obligations.

Consider how these other professions handle conflicts:

  • A doctor who prioritizes profit over patient care faces license revocation
  • A lawyer who betrays court ethics for client interests risks disbarment
  • A trustee who mismanages assets faces personal liability

Yet corporate leaders who cite fiduciary duty to justify environmental destruction, worker exploitation, or community harm face few comparable consequences. The rare exceptions—like prosecutions for egregious safety violations or environmental disasters—only highlight the inadequacy of current oversight.

The Danger of Regulatory Rollbacks

The systematic dismantling of federal oversight mechanisms represents a particularly grave threat to corporate accountability. When regulatory frameworks are weakened or eliminated, it creates a vacuum that historically has been filled by corporate self-interest rather than self-regulation. We've seen this pattern repeatedly:

  • The savings and loan crisis followed financial deregulation
  • The 2008 financial crisis emerged after Glass-Steagall's repeal
  • Environmental disasters have followed enforcement rollbacks
  • Worker safety deteriorates when OSHA oversight is weakened

Each time regulatory guardrails are removed, corporations have demonstrated that they will exploit these gaps, often citing fiduciary duty as justification. This isn't just about bad actors; it's about system design. Just as we don't rely on individual doctors' consciences to prevent medical malpractice, we shouldn't expect corporate ethics to emerge spontaneously from good intentions. We need:

  • Stronger regulatory frameworks with real enforcement power
  • Mandatory stakeholder representation on corporate boards
  • Explicit legal duties to consider environmental and social impacts
  • Personal liability for directors who hide behind fiduciary duty while causing foreseeable harm
  • Reformed corporate governance structures that institutionalize ethical constraints
  • Protection of existing regulatory frameworks from politically motivated dismantling

The history of professional ethics teaches us that moral behavior in institutional contexts requires both individual integrity and robust external constraints. Relying on corporate leaders to voluntarily balance competing interests isn't just naive—it's a policy choice that privileges shareholder returns over all other social goods. When we allow the dismantling of regulatory oversight, we're effectively choosing to trust in corporate benevolence despite centuries of evidence that such trust is misplaced.

Broader Institutional Harm

The solution isn't abandoning fiduciary duty but restoring its proper context as one consideration among many. Just as we expect doctors to consider both patient wishes and broader medical ethics, we should expect corporate leaders to balance shareholder interests with societal responsibilities.

This reframing means:

  • Boards can't hide behind shareholder value to justify environmental destruction
  • Executives must consider long-term sustainability alongside quarterly profits
  • Companies must balance stakeholder interests rather than maximizing one at others' expense

Most importantly, this approach often serves shareholder interests better in the long run. Companies that build sustainable relationships with workers and communities, that consider their broader impact—these organizations frequently outperform their more predatory peers over time. The tragedy isn't that we must choose between profit and ethics, but that we've allowed corporate leaders to pretend we do.

Insurance companies use actuarial science to calculate risk and likely outcomes. While they often use this knowledge for profit, we can apply similar thinking to understand how institutional decisions compound into systemic harm. Each seemingly minor policy choice creates ripples that, when combined, can devastate communities.

This is, for example, how the school-to-prison pipeline emerges— not through any single malicious decision, but through a series of choices that compound with mathematical certainty. Studies show that each suspension doubles the probability of future criminal justice involvement1. Each police interaction in school increases the likelihood of dropout by measurable percentages2. When we multiply these probabilities across thousands of students and years of policy decisions, we can calculate the human cost as precisely as any insurance actuary predicting mortality rates.

Consider how a school board's "reasonable" decisions cascade into tragedy:

  • Implementing "zero-tolerance" policies to maintain order
  • Adding police presence to "ensure safety"
  • Using standardized metrics to "maintain standards"
  • Removing "disruptive" students to "protect learning environments"
  • Reducing counseling budgets to "balance finances"

Each decision, viewed in isolation, might seem defensible. The board members can point to specific incidents or budget constraints justifying each choice. But when we calculate the probable outcomes—as actuaries would—we see how these policies mathematically ensure certain students will be pushed out of education and into the criminal justice system.

Let's examine how this plays out across different states, each implementing seemingly rational policies that mathematically ensure certain outcomes:

The Texas Model

In Texas, zero-tolerance policies were implemented to create "consistent discipline." The math was straightforward:

  • First offense: Automatic suspension
  • Second offense: Extended suspension
  • Third offense: Alternative school placement
  • Subsequent offenses: Juvenile justice referral

Each step doubled the likelihood of the next incident3. By the numbers, a student receiving one suspension had a 50% chance of a second, and those reaching alternative placement had an 80% chance of eventual arrest4.

Mississippi's System of Escalation

The Meridian Public School District provided a stark case study in systemic harm. The Department of Justice's investigation revealed a precise sequence:

  1. Minor infractions (dress code, talking back) triggered police involvement
  2. Police presence led to arrests for "disturbing the peace"
  3. Arrests triggered automatic detention
  4. Detention led to missed school, falling behind
  5. Academic struggles increased likelihood of future infractions

The system created a mathematical certainty: students entering this cycle had less than a 20% chance of graduation.

North Carolina's Data Story

North Carolina maintains detailed school discipline records, allowing us to calculate exact probabilities:

  • Students with one school-based court referral: 67% dropout rate
  • Black students: 3x more likely to receive referrals for identical infractions
  • Students with learning disabilities: 4x higher suspension rates
  • Each year of zero-tolerance policies: 12% increase in juvenile justice involvement

These aren't random outcomes—they're predictable results of policy choices, as calculable as any insurance risk model.

Turning the Ship Around

Some districts have proven these outcomes aren't inevitable by changing the underlying equations:

Miami-Dade County implemented restorative justice practices, resulting in:

  • 60% reduction in school-based arrests
  • 90% decrease in repeat offenses
  • Graduation rates improved by 15% for previously suspended students

New York City's partnership between education and law enforcement produced measurable changes:

  • School-based arrests decreased by 67%
  • Suspension rates dropped by 50%
  • Academic performance improved in direct proportion to reduced police contact

These examples highlight the profound impact school board decisions can have. When board members choose to ignore the broader implications of their policies, they contribute to systemic inequities. Conversely, proactive and equitable decision-making can transform educational environments and promote social justice.

We've built societal systems that obscure these chains of responsibility. It's comfortable to imagine that institutional roles shield us from moral culpability—that we can compartmentalize our corporate decisions from our personal ethics. But this framework fails to match the reality of how influence and harm actually flow through our interconnected world.

Building Better Decision-Making Systems

What would it look like to build systems that properly weigh these ripple effects? To develop moral frameworks that match the reality of how influence and harm actually propagate? We must dispel the myth that this is impossibly complex. We already track complex chains of causation when we're motivated to do so. Insurance companies calculate the statistical likelihood of specific trees falling on specific houses. Supply chain managers model how minor supplier delays cascade through production systems. Wall Street quantifies how leadership changes affect stock prices years into the future.

We choose not to apply this same rigor to moral consequences. Imagine if corporate performance reviews included metrics on employee family stability over time, policy proposals required modeling generational impacts on community health, executive compensation was tied to measurable wellbeing indicators across stakeholder groups, and board members were held personally accountable for foreseeable downstream effects of their decisions. This isn't about creating an oppressive system of total responsibility. Rather, it's about ending our current system of selective moral blindness. We don't need to trace every butterfly effect to acknowledge that institutional power magnifies moral weight rather than diminishing it.

From Individual to Systemic Responsibility

Our moral frameworks evolved to handle direct, personal interactions. We intuitively understand responsibility when:

  • A parent's actions affect their child
  • A teacher's words shape a student's self-image
  • A friend's support helps someone through crisis

Yet we struggle to apply these same intuitions to systemic actions. We need frameworks that recognize:

  • Institutional power magnifies rather than diminishes moral responsibility
  • Maintaining harmful systems is an active choice, not a neutral position
  • Silence in the face of systemic harm is a form of complicity

Some will argue this framework would paralyze decision-making. But we already navigate complex moral territory in our personal lives. We understand that raising children requires weighing countless subtle influences. We recognize that managing a household means considering complex tradeoffs. We're capable of thinking this way—we've just built institutional systems that discourage it.

Others will claim this places too much burden on individuals. But consider the inverse: our current framework places the entire burden of systemic harm on those with the least power to affect it. We force individuals to bear the full weight of "market forces" while pretending those controlling the markets bear no moral responsibility for their choices.

The reality is that power and influence flow through our world in complex ways. Every institutional role comes with ripple effects that extend far beyond direct actions. We can either develop frameworks that acknowledge this reality, or continue pretending that organizational charts somehow shield us from moral responsibility.

Expanding Moral Intuitions

The path forward isn't about radical reinvention—it's about expanding frameworks we already understand. Consider how we assess responsibility in other domains: when a parent's neglect leads to their child's harmful actions, we recognize their partial responsibility. When a contractor's poor maintenance leads to structural failure, we trace liability through the chain of decisions. When a financial advisor's self-serving recommendations damage their clients' retirement, we acknowledge the breach of responsibility—even when every action was technically legal.

Yet somehow, we've created a carve-out for institutional and systemic decisions. A CEO can approve policies they know will lead to preventable deaths, and we treat it as mere business strategy. A politician can maintain systems they understand perpetuate harm, and we accept "that's just how things work" as an excuse. A citizen can actively support harmful policies while claiming moral distance from their effects.

This selective enforcement of responsibility serves power, not justice or practical necessity. When you accept a position of greater influence—whether as a manager, board member, or public official—you're not reducing your moral responsibility through bureaucratic distance. You're accepting a broader scope of moral obligation. The executive who claims "I'm just maximizing shareholder value" is making the same moral error as the soldier who claims "I'm just following orders."

Maintaining existing harmful systems isn't a neutral act—it's a daily choice to perpetuate those harms. The department head who continues discriminatory hiring practices isn't "staying out of politics"—they're actively choosing to maintain discrimination. The citizen who remains "neutral" on systemic injustice is actively supporting those systems.

If anything, our moral responsibility should increase with the scale of our influence. Instead, we've built frameworks that reduce perceived moral weight as actual impact grows. This creates perverse incentives where the most damaging actions carry the least personal moral burden.

Implementing Better Frameworks

We can start by extending existing moral intuitions. If we hold parents partially responsible for foreseeable harms from their parenting choices, we should hold executives responsible for foreseeable harms from their policy choices. If we recognize that teaching children requires considering subtle influences, we should acknowledge that running institutions requires the same. If we understand that community leadership carries moral weight beyond direct actions, we should apply this same logic to institutional leadership.

Consider how we judge political decisions today. When a policy results in direct, immediate harm—like a poorly executed evacuation leading to immediate casualties—we recognize clear responsibility. But when policies create slow-motion disasters—like systematically underfunding infrastructure maintenance or ignoring climate resilience—we treat them as mere budget choices rather than moral decisions.

This artificial distinction has devastating consequences. A legislator who votes to reduce healthcare access isn't just moving numbers on a spreadsheet—they're choosing outcomes as real as any direct action. When studies show that specific policy changes will lead to thousands of preventable deaths, maintaining those policies isn't passive—it's an active choice to accept those deaths.

The "political reality" defense particularly warrants examination. When politicians claim their hands are tied by political constraints, they're really saying that their career preservation outweighs the human costs of their choices. We somehow accept this as normal, rather than recognizing it as the moral abdication it represents.

Consider these parallel scenarios: a politician votes to maintain policies they know will result in thousands of preventable deaths, citing political necessity; a corporate executive maintains practices they know will result in thousands of preventable deaths, citing market necessity; an individual directly causes a single death, citing personal necessity. We treat these with decreasing moral weight as their impact increases. This inverted moral calculus doesn't just fail ethically—it creates perverse incentives that reward expanding harm while diffusing responsibility.

Agency Shutdowns and Systemic Violence

Recent federal agency shutdowns provide a stark example of how institutional decisions can cascade into widespread harm. At the Department of Health and Human Services, newly appointed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised not to change childhood vaccination schedules to secure his confirmation, then immediately announced plans to investigate them. This represents more than just a broken promise—it's a calculated move that could endanger millions of children's health through institutional means.

Meanwhile, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has imposed $1 spending limits on government credit cards across multiple agencies, effectively paralyzing basic government functions. This isn't mere cost-cutting—it's a deliberate dismantling of institutional capacity that will result in real human suffering, even if no single person can be directly blamed for any specific death or hardship.

The human cost of these institutional actions becomes painfully clear in cases like New York City, where the federal government abruptly clawed back $80 million in previously approved migrant shelter funding. This wasn't just a policy change—it was money already allocated, authorized, and paid to support vulnerable families. When DOGE chief Elon Musk justified this by falsely claiming the funds were for "luxury hotels," he demonstrated how institutional violence often hides behind misleading narratives. The reality is that these funds provided basic shelter at $12.50 per night, hardly the luxury accommodations claimed. Each bureaucrat involved in this clawback can point to procedure and authority, but the end result is thousands of vulnerable people potentially forced onto the streets.

The effects ripple through every level of government. At Fort Campbell military base, librarians are being forced to remove books mentioning slavery and civil rights from school shelves. This systematic erasure of history isn't just about books—it's about using institutional power to shape future generations' understanding of systemic injustice.

As Christina Pagel documents in her analysis of the administration's first three weeks, these aren't isolated incidents but part of a coordinated dismantling of democratic institutions and social protections. The strategy relies on overwhelming the public with so many changes that no single action can maintain focus long enough for effective resistance.

This is actuarial murder in action— not through direct violence, but through the calculated degradation of systems that protect human life and dignity. When we cut funding to environmental monitoring, when we dismantle public health infrastructure, when we erase historical knowledge of systemic oppression, we are making mathematical choices about who will live and who will die, even if no single person pulls a trigger.

Oligarchic Power

The concentration of power in the hands of oligarchs—whether traditional billionaires or modern technocrats—creates a particularly insidious form of moral abdication. When a small group can reshape society through financial and political leverage while claiming distance from the consequences, we see our broken moral framework at its most extreme.

Consider how billionaires can reshape media landscapes through ownership and algorithm control, influence elections through super PACs while claiming mere "participation," dismantle public institutions while building private alternatives, and create policy through think tanks while maintaining plausible deniability. Each decision ripples through society, affecting millions of lives, yet our frameworks treat these as mere business or political choices rather than moral ones. The oligarch who dismantles public transit to promote car dependency isn't just making market choices—they're actively harming communities. The tech billionaire who promotes engagement algorithms knowing they increase teen suicide isn't just optimizing metrics—they're choosing deaths.

The Anti-DEI Movement

In recent years, we've witnessed a concerted effort by MAGA Republicans to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, even going so far as to propose prosecuting those who implement them. This movement follows a broader reactionary agenda that seeks to undermine initiatives aimed at addressing systemic inequalities. At its core, this push reflects a profound unwillingness to visualize moral burdens beyond one's immediate environment.

The stance against DEI initiatives reveals a deeper issue than political positioning - it actively impedes our ability to identify and address systemic inequities. For instance, research showing Black students in Mississippi being three times more likely to face disciplinary action would be impossible to conduct under currently proposed anti-DEI measures, effectively concealing such disparities from scrutiny. This data blackout would prevent institutions from even recognizing, let alone addressing, systematic biases in their policies.

By rejecting DEI programs, these groups are effectively denying the ripple effects of systemic discrimination and the moral imperative to address them. This selective blindness allows individuals to maintain a narrow focus on their local environment, ignoring the broader societal impacts of their actions. Their dismissal of social justice concerns sidesteps the moral weight of their decisions and the broader consequences they entail. This approach not only perpetuates existing inequalities but also fosters an environment where moral responsibility is minimized, and systemic harm is allowed to flourish unchecked.

Moral Agency and Action

Let's be clear-eyed: When institutional channels are captured, the moral weight of individual action becomes greater, not lesser. This isn't time for despair—it's time for strategic resistance and community building. Here's why, and more importantly, how.

First, understand that oligarchic power relies on learned helplessness. When people believe they can't affect change, they stop trying. This serves power. But history shows that seemingly invincible control can crumble when enough people reject its legitimacy and act accordingly.

Concrete actions that maintain moral agency include getting deeply involved in your local mutual aid networks, building community resilience through neighborhood organizing, supporting and strengthening local institutions that protect vulnerable populations, and creating parallel support systems that can operate regardless of federal hostility.

Every system, no matter how controlled, has pressure points. Focus on corporate accountability— companies fear brand damage. Target local enforcement of harmful policies—implementation often depends on individual choices. Support legal challenges and documentation of harms. Use institutional knowledge to identify vulnerabilities.

Help marginalized communities develop autonomous support systems. Document everything—create records for future accountability. Build networks of trusted professionals across industries. Support and protect whistleblowers and ethical objectors. Maintain institutional knowledge as systems are dismantled.

If you're inside these systems, document harmful decisions. Build networks of ethical professionals in your field. Preserve data and records that others might try to destroy. Create ethical frameworks in your profession for resistance. Support colleagues who take ethical stands.

The key is understanding that "total control" is an illusion. Systems require participation to function. Every person who chooses to act ethically, document harm, support resistance, or build alternative structures is throwing sand in the gears of authoritarian control.

Remember: Power appears most absolute right before it crumbles. But this only happens when people reject the mythology of helplessness and take sustained moral action.

Addressing Moral Debt

Let's confront an uncomfortable truth: Our past silence and inaction have compounded the moral debt we now face. The cost of course correction grows exponentially with delay. Like a fiscal debt accruing interest, our years of moral abdication mean that maintaining our current comfort level while addressing systemic harm is no longer possible—nor should it be.

Consider the compounding effects of our past choices. Every year we accepted minority rule through gerrymandering made dismantling it harder. Each time we ignored rising fascist rhetoric as "just politics" normalized it further. Every instance of choosing career safety over speaking out strengthened corrupt systems. Each "it's not that bad yet" moment helped build our current crisis.

The ship has listed so far that righting it requires significant personal sacrifice today. This means having difficult conversations with family members we previously let slide, risking professional relationships by speaking uncomfortable truths, using social capital to challenge power rather than maintain access. It means being labeled "difficult" for refusing to accept harmful norms. In our professional lives, it means refusing to implement harmful policies despite career impact, using our positions to protect others despite personal risk, speaking up when silence would be easier and safer, and building ethical coalitions even when it limits opportunities.

Beyond these immediate costs, Pagel's analysis reveals a deeper challenge we'll face once the current administration's damage is done. The systematic gutting of federal agencies creates compounding damage that will echo for generations: each lost public servant takes with them institutional knowledge that can't be replaced by simply refilling the position. The mass layoffs, hostile work environments, and systematic removal of career civil servants are creating voids in capability that will take years or decades to rebuild. This reconstruction will eventually require a generation willing to enter public service under difficult conditions— but first, we must focus on preventing further destruction and protecting what remains of our institutions.

This isn't about guilt— it's about honest accounting. Just as we understand that decades of deferred infrastructure maintenance require greater investment now, we must accept that years of moral deference to power require greater sacrifice to correct.

The comfortable path of gradual reform was perhaps once possible. But our past choices to prioritize stability over justice, comfort over confrontation, have closed off easier options. We now face a starker choice: accept dramatic personal costs to oppose systemic harm, or become complicit through continued comfort-seeking.

Footnotes

  1. Fabelo, T., et al. (2011). "Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students' Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement." Council of State Governments Justice Center. ↩

  2. Jason P. Nance, Students, Police, and the School-To-Prison Pipeline, 93 Wash. U. L. Rev. 919 (2016). ↩

  3. Texas Education Agency. "Disciplinary Data Products: Annual State Summary." Shows year-over-year escalation in student disciplinary actions. ↩

  4. Advancement Project. (2003). "Derailed! The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track." ↩