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\u201cChoose the product best suited for baby,\u201d Nestl\xe9 urged in a 1970s baby formula ad. \u201cWhat size is your carbon footprint?\u201d wondered oil giant BP in 2003. \u201cTexting, music listening put distracted pedestrians at risk,\u201d USA Today\xa0announced in 2012.

These headlines and ad copy all offer a glimpse into a longstanding strategy among corporations: place the burdens of safety, health, and wellbeing on individuals, in order to deflect responsibility and regulation. Whether in the areas of transportation, climate, or nutrition and food safety, individuals, namely \u201cconsumers,\u201d are increasingly expected to assume full responsibility for their own wellbeing, and are blamed, shamed, and punished\u2013or worse, made ill or injured\u2013when they can\u2019t live up to these unrealistic expectations.

Sure, everyone must bear some level of personal responsibility in matters of health and safety, obviously. But corporations from Chrysler to Nestl\xe9, in concert with a compliant US media, have taken advantage of this truism to place a disproportionate level of obligation onto the people who work in their warehouses and buy their products. At the same time, they\u2019ve been able to fend off even the most minor of structural changes\u2013say, using less plastic or healthier ingredients\u2013with often dangerous, even deadly, consequences.

This is Part I of a two-part series on what we\u2019re calling \u201cThe Great Neoliberal Burden Shift,\u201d a process in which corporations deflect blame onto the relatively powerless. On this episode, we examine how corporations have shifted the burdens of liability onto \u201cconsumers\u201d and other individuals, examining how the auto, fossil-fuel, and food and beverage industries have orchestrated media campaigns to frame the people they harm, whether directly or indirectly, as responsible for their own misfortunes.

Our guest is journalist Jessie Singer.

This episode was made in partnership with Workday Magazine.