BHS staff carry discounted goods from the company's head office. Picture by: Nick Ansell / PA Wire/Press Association ImagesIn the wake of revelations about his role in the collapse of BHS, Sir Phillip Green has been condemned as “the unacceptable face of capitalism”. Trotting out this phrase as part of the “damning” House of Commons Work and Pensions and Business, Innovation and Skills Committees report on the collapse may make for good headlines. But it does nothing to further reforms towards any more effective system for controlling the behemoths of corporate capitalism.
While the headline versions of the report make much of Sir Philip Green’s “systematic plunder” of the company, a closer reading reveals a systematically flawed system of regulation. This system remains untouched by the financial crisis of 2007, still under attack as a burden on business, and likely to be further weakened as the realities of post-Brexit become increasingly apparent.
The report – or at least its popular reception – is a classic instance of individualising corporate offending. Sir Phillip Green, and to a lesser extent Dominic Chappell, are the contemporary equivalents of the ‘Scumbag Millionaires’ of the 2007 financial crisis. The Sun ran this moniker as a headline across a front page showing Fred Goodwin, Stephen Hester, Andy Hornby and Tom McKillop as they sat before the UK Treasury Select Committee hearings of 2009 into the banking crisis.
