I just saw “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the World,” the documentary about how the $30 billion energy trading company careened to bankruptcy in weeks. To me, it all boils down to one word: COMPLICITY (Complicity: “involvement as an accomplice in a questionable act or a crime,” http://www.answers.com/).
How many people were complicit in Enron’s crime? Thousands. Large banks, Enron executives, stock brokers, employees, shareholders, even California power companies did not question what should have been questioned. My take-away? “If it looks too good to be true, dig deeper, because it probably is.” Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistle-blower and heroine of this tale, if there is one, is explicit that Enron is NOT an aberration. Complicity can happen anywhere. And it does, when people are more motivated by self interest (e.g., money, fame, reputation) than by public good. So I’m asking myself, “When am I complicit, and why?”
