The moral monstrosity of a crime is not reduced because it is bold and skillfully performed. Nor can a fraud be made acceptable by scale: swindle one person, and you're a cheater ; swindle millions of tax payers, and you get nominated as a candidate to represent an entire political party.
If you use borrowed money during times of easy-money to seize one legitimate business, and immediately liquidate its parts and give yourself a huge salary, the de-jobbed employees will despise you. If you do it to a hundred businesses, and you become a millionaire, others will call you "successful", will admire you for your aggressive self-interest, and nominate you for the Presidency.
Les crimes deviennent innocents, même glorieux, par leur nombre et par leurs qualités; de là vient que les voleries publiques sont des habiletés, et que prendre des provinces injustement s’appelle faire des conquêtes. Le crime a ses héros, ainsi que la vertu.
Crimes are made innocent, even virtuous, by their number and nature; hence public robbery becomes a skillful achievement and wrongful seizure of a province is called conquest. Crime has its heroes no less than virtue has.
Source(s): François VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld, Reflexions ou sentences et maximmes morales (1665)
If you use borrowed money during times of easy-money to seize one legitimate business, and immediately liquidate its parts and give yourself a huge salary, the de-jobbed employees will despise you. If you do it to a hundred businesses, and you become a millionaire, others will call you "successful", will admire you for your aggressive self-interest, and nominate you for the Presidency.
Les crimes deviennent innocents, même glorieux, par leur nombre et par leurs qualités; de là vient que les voleries publiques sont des habiletés, et que prendre des provinces injustement s’appelle faire des conquêtes. Le crime a ses héros, ainsi que la vertu.
Crimes are made innocent, even virtuous, by their number and nature; hence public robbery becomes a skillful achievement and wrongful seizure of a province is called conquest. Crime has its heroes no less than virtue has.
Source(s): François VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld, Reflexions ou sentences et maximmes morales (1665)
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