When the news of another mining incedent occuring last week in China, it would come as no surprise to anyone the bakground of the mine, or the fact that mine managers had ignored clear signs of danger.  It was an event that sadly happens with enough frequency in China that there would be little question that news of corruption, greed, and failure to head safety guidelines would be at the top of the list.  That, in their greed, another illegal mine had once again put the profits of the mine before the miners themselves, and it cost lives. 

But when a nearly identical incident occured in West Virginia that very same week, it became clear that the problems China faces in cleaning up industry are not problems they face alone. Especially as news that the mine had been cited for hundreds of violations, and told to shut down on numerous occasions.

Yet it didn't

That in their short term interests to keep a mine open, and pay the relevant parties their relevant fines, the greater picture of the environmental and social costs were neither fully respected, nor planned for. Another sign to me of not only how difficult to enforce regulations and fines are, but how difficult it is to create systmes that cannot be exploited.

Working with the issues of CSR and sustainability, this is perhaps the goal that we should be achieving.  That, regardless of whether we would wish it to be true, the only way we are going to be able to solve problem is to focus not on how to convince human nature to be just, but to create systems that are able to remove the flexibility of human nature to exploit systems for greed.

That, knowing full well that mine owners are operating as a result of an economic system that we have created, that it is also dependent on the very economic of that system in order to survive. 

It is simply a matter of leadership.

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