Toyota’s massive recall of cars is serious stuff – a safety concern that may have cost lives. It’s a disaster of still immeasurable consequences for “the world’s greenest carmaker”. But by now, we’ve heard enough about Toyota’s supposedly self-destructive and greedy management. But before we bury Toyota in ridicule, let’s address what’s really happened and what it means.

Comments from the media, academics and politicians have ranged from bemusement that Toyota could let minor mechanical defects threaten its image as a sustainability leader to outright hostility. It’s “just another corporation”, which in liberal-ese is the worst put-down ever, groused one suddenly cynical Australian professor on an ethics website that I frequent.

Let’s dispense with the myths that Toyota was somehow trafficking a “we don’t know what’s causing this” lie or was slower to respond than other companies that have faced catastrophic challenges.

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