That trust was betrayed as these plant operators opted to minimize costs. Concern for the safety was subordinate to business goals. Joseph Jett of Kidder Peabody and Nick Leeson of Barings Bank, through the miracle of computers, were able to single-handedly destroy two companies and cost the trusting owners much of their investments. Both men placed their desire for increased wealth over the interests and property rights of their investors and fellow employees. Both men also had the sort of control over operations that was designed and awarded on the assumption of honor in execution.
Technology places greater control in the hands of fewer individuals.
As we look back in history, it would be difficult to find a disaster of the level of Chernobyl. As we study even the robber barons of the late nineteenth century, we are unable to pinpoint conduct by one individual that destroyed international firms. With the individual autonomy and power that technology facilitates come the need for the highest standards of integrity in those individuals given the control of that technology. On Kohlberg's scale of moral development, we have declined from a level of choosing integrity because of our belief in its importance and its origins in spirituality to a level of finding an ethical breach only when one is caught. With technology affording greater ease of expansive business operations through one person's conduct, the standard for behavior cannot remain at such a low level that is divorced from compassion.