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When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a parapet for thy roof, that thou bringest not blood upon thy house, if any man fall from thence.1
If a builder build a house for a man and do not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapse and cause the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.2
Accepting Risks = sticking the other guy's neck out.3
Risk, and risk taking, have ancient roots. Our ancestors who chose to risk gustatory chaos by bravely ingesting an oyster, lobster or other strange edible were risk-taking pioneers. They created and accepted risks to themselves. As members of societies became more specialized and inter-dependent, risk creators' actions began imposing risks on others. Dangerous events confirmed the need to define responsibilities of risk creators to the others they put at risk. Codes, such as those cited above, were instituted to standardize accepted practices. Insurance became an approach to sharing financial injuries that might result from the unintended consequences of ill-founded risk acceptance.
Inter-dependence among institutions became even more complex as technology introduced innovations to transportation and manufacturing activities that placed more numerous and diverse individuals and objects at risk. Risk-acceptance practices also became more complicated: decision-makers, who allowed risks to be accepted, became increasingly further removed from resultant risk bearers.
Uncoupling: The Gap in Risk-Acceptance Practices
In early days, the coupling between risk creator and risk bearer was direct. You build a house for someone; the house falls down on them; you pay a price. That is close coupling of accountability to results. In more recent times, societal changes, evolving laws and technological complexity have muddled and frequently eclipsed direct accountability between the risk creator and the risk bearers. This uncoupling has resulted in a substantial accountability gap in current risk-acceptance decision-making processes.
When direct coupling between risk creator and risk bearers exists, the risks to each party can be identified and documented. Risk-acceptance decisions can be negotiated directly among parties, based on those identified and documented risks. If direct coupling does not exist, risk identification and documentation are still feasible and desirable, even though risk-acceptance decisions become more complicated.
Example #1 of an Uncoupled Accountability Gap: The Ford Pinto Fuel Tank4
Ford decoupled its accountability as risk decision-maker from its actual risk takers the buyers of the Pinto. Ford Chairman Lee Iacocca's specifications for the Pinto's design were uncompromising: it was not to weigh an ounce more than 2,000 pounds and not to cost a cent more than $2,000. During design and production, crash tests revealed a serious defect in the gas tank: In rear-end crashes over 25 miles per hour, the gas tank always ruptured. Correcting it would have required changing and strengthening the design.
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