Are scandals inherent to modern capitalism?

Addiction Economy Taught for Today - are scandals like the Post Office, Infected Blood scandal simply inevitable given the incentives of modern capitalism and the 'scientific' optimisation of efficiency in business which began in early industrial factories?

Really worth a read in The Conversation by Anthony Montgomery on the 'scandal epidemic', which he argues is not random and surprising, but obviously going to occur.

"We need to start by accepting that organisations will do anything to maximise profit and shareholder value, and reverse-engineer from this point. For example, accepting that accidents are likely can protect people from organisational dysfunction."

He argues that given these incentives and view of people as machines to be optimised these scandals are not at all surprising and are in fact inevitable and predictable, and we should start from there.

He has sensible suggestions for what could help, but this observation caught my eye:

"Imagine how different the Horizon scandal might have been if the Post Office invited sub-postmasters to collaborate in monitoring the new system for potential flaws when it was introduced."

So simple. So obvious. No scandal at all. Just a better system that worked.

As Dr Roger Miles consistently reminds us, there is the strategy and then there is 'What Actually Happens'. Cover ups are the default in a system that actively incentivises them.