“Criminals” are another rogue actor blamed for capitalism’s cycles. The mass media and appropriate authorities routinely denounce those illegally gaming the system: the underpaid secretary who embezzles, the insider trader who makes illegal profits, the syndicates that run whole industries or cities. Such illegal economic activities happen all the time, even more so during crises. Criminal activities are thus more effects than causes of capitalism’s cycles. Yet historical and contemporary records overflow with blame variously heaped on the illegal acts of financiers, corporate executives, corrupt state officials, union leaders, and “organized crime” for causing capitalism’s cycles and crises.

Whether consciously or not, such a focus on misbehavior by the state or by criminals serves to avoid blaming the system and its rules and regulations, its structure of rewards and penalties. Pinpointing “the bad guys” perpetuates the ancient art of scapegoating, deflecting blame on convenient targets when in fact the system is the problem.