I love the rebranding of corporate villainy as “Blame as a Service”; it makes it easier to discuss these sleaze-bags in the open without getting into nitty-gritty technicalities that derail the core conversation.

Also fitting that McKinsey (and by extension, most “business consultancy” companies) get the first shoutout as a prime example of BaaS. Despite lending their support to decades of awful, and at times morally evil decisions, the arrangement allows both business elites and McKinsey themselves to escape blame via simple finger-pointing, the masses largely unaware that said negative outcomes were the goal all along.

To fix broken systems, we must find ways of distilling complex and nuanced topics into simple-to-communicate concepts, vocabulary, and slang. Blame-as-a-Service accomplishes that nicely, and will hopefully allow a redirection back towards the core point of many such discussions: accountability, or lack thereof.