Opioid makers spent years promoting their habit-forming pain medications to healthcare providers they knew were prescribing them for unsafe and ineffective purposes, contributing to a national tragedy of addiction — but driving up profits to staggering le

Exxon Mobil sound very trustworthy to me. And despite what the article says, it’s not very “unexpected” either.

It’s not unexpected because, as the story notes, we’ve already known from a “growing body of evidence” that Exxon Mobil recognized decades ago, in the late 1970s, that burning fossil fuels was warming the Earth “even as it continued to heap doubt onto that notion publicly.”

But it’s also not unexpected because this kind of deception by corporations is all too common.

Tobacco companies spent decades suppressing the evidence and discrediting the science that showed links between smoking and cancer, though the companies knew the link was real. Meanwhile, millions died prematurely from smoking-related disease.

Opioid makers spent years promoting their habit-forming pain medications to healthcare providers they knew were prescribing them for unsafe and ineffective purposes, contributing to a national tragedy of addiction — but driving up profits to staggering levels.

The financial services industry engaged in abusive, self-serving mortgage practices, including giving out risky loans — causing ruinous harm to ordinary Americans hoping to buy homes and helping ignite a global recession.

Pharma companies, big food producers, gun manufacturers — all have misled their customers at one point or another. It’s not aberrant behavior by a few bad apples; it’s companies doing what the market incentivizes them to do.

Corporations don’t exist to make the world a better place or even to provide customers with the goods and services they need. Rather, the overarching goal is to maximize profits. And sometimes that requires being less than honest, in the view of some executives.

Sure, some company employees might push back and some whistleblowers might emerge, but they’ll only win some of the time.

I’m not arguing that people should place all their trust in government instead. It’s hard to trust politicians when people like George Santos are kicking around the Capitol. And when the Washington Post cataloged more than 30,000 lies by President Donald Trump during his four-year tenure. And when three members of Los Angeles City Council have in the past few years been indicted, pleaded guilty or served time.

But NGOS? What have NGOS ever done wrong that compares with the misbehavior of corporations? (To their credit, respondents to the survey gave high trust rankings to scientists, higher than they gave to CEOS.)

I assume that, in the

U.S. anyway, the relatively high trust people place in business is the result, at least partly, of the persistent power of the classic American dream — the increasingly archaic belief that anyone who works hard and plays by the rules of our freemarket, business-friendly society can rise up the ladder from poverty to affluence.

The sad fact, though, is that we live in an America where upward mobility is no longer the rule.

I’m no Marxist. I believe capitalism has plenty of advantages over the alternatives.

But it’s a mistake to believe that corporate interests are aligned with our own. What’s good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the country. We want the jobs that business provides and the goods it produces and certainly we want a healthy, vibrant, dynamic economy. But corporations need to be regulated and monitored if they’re going to do what is right.

And while we work to hold them accountable, the last thing we should do is trust them blindly.