[RHSeeger]

My thought would be that it's as much the fact that society is growing. It used to be we'd buy our food from the producers of it. If it was bad, word would get around and the 10-50 people that were buying from them would stop; and they'd be out of business. Then society grew and we got local stores. And, while the same _idea_ was true, there was a lot more people and word didn't get around as much; so the impact was smaller. Then big stores, major chains, and you and your 100 friends that know something is bad... don't matter to them very much. Then online retailers and now nobody matters to them. If word they they're cheating people gets out, they change the name of their business and they're fine again.

So sure, the pursuit of profits is impactful; but the lack of repercussions (when making choices that hurt others) is a pretty major player, too.