What if corporate scandals are actually good for the world?

In this episode of Late Night Live, host David Maher explores a provocative thesis from political scientists Tegu Lee and Peppa Culpepper: that corporate scandals, while devastating in the short term, can serve as catalysts for democratic renewal by activating public outrage and forcing political reform. Drawing parallels between today’s corporate excesses and the early 20th-century Progressive Era in the U.S., Culpepper argues that scandals reveal latent public anger—unfocused but powerful—about moral injustice in capitalism. Historical examples like Upton Sinclair’s *The Jungle* and the post-1900 regulatory reforms show how scandals, when combined with investigative journalism and public mobilization, can break through political inertia. However, the episode also examines why scandals often fail to lead to reform—due to media congestion (e.g., 9/11 diverting attention from Bernie Madoff), racial bias (as seen in the UK Post Office scandal), and political polarization (e.g., the FTX scandal splitting left and right on whether regulation or individual blame is at fault). The Cambridge Analytica scandal, however, stands as a rare success story, leading to California’s groundbreaking privacy law and spurring EU-wide digital regulation. Culpepper concludes that while not optimistic about capitalism’s inherent fairness, she sees growing public sentiment against billionaire power as a promising foundation for future democratic pushback.