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The late economist, John Kenneth Galbraith observed, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for greed."
British Petroleum's oil-well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is a striking illustration of the catastrophic consequences of inadequate, even non-existing regulation of big-business.
The primary purpose of any business is to provide as much money for the owners as possible. The owners of small businesses are often known in their community and their behavior in the business can effect their personal relationships - this might tend to encourage them to behave more ethically in their business dealings.
On the other hand, big businesses are owned by many thousands of investors who more often than not care nothing for how the business is conducted, but only for the money they get as dividends or through trading of their shares. In fact most investors do so through an investment counselor and don't pay much attention to the operation of the corporations they are invested in; their only concern is the value of their portfolio.
It is unrealistic to expect a large corporation to behave ethically - by their nature corporations are amoral, their sole concern is profit. Criticizing a corporation for spoiling the environment in pursuit of profit is useless without laws and regulations that prevent them from doing so.
The conservative ideal of unregulated capitalism (i.e. the "free market") ultimately results in concentration of wealth in a few hands, the despoilment of the environment and the impoverishment of ordinary people. When Reagan embarked on the path of corporate deregulation events like BP's blowout became inevitable.
