Capital punishment for corporations

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VelvetFangi@reddit

Shareholders would suddenly develop a very strong interest in ethical behavior.

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Na, you just implode the stock market, most people's pensions become worthless, there's a financial and housing crash, and at the end of it, we just revert to a much more basic form of economy where its very hard for people who arent already wealthy to ever set up or own businesses.

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StarChild413@reddit

so your solution to fix the economy is accelerationism and Great Depression 2?

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OrderOfMagnitude@reddit

"You can't crash my precious free money machine! Think of the pensions!"

Which is why the moneymen wanted pensions to be invested. Their broken shitty system holds retirements hostage.

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BarNo3385@reddit

Lol, its honestly just a bit pitiful listening to this kind of rant. Do you also believe horses were more efficient transport than cars, and electricity is all a con perpetuated to stop us all benefiting from the power potential of watermills?

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OrderOfMagnitude@reddit

What's embarrassing is comparing the stock market to useful inventions like cars and electricity.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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shartmaister@reddit

Or just do it the right way.

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StarChild413@reddit

how the hell would this even work

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Every_Application_26@reddit

Wouldn't the crimes be committed by the employees? In the Office Epsiode where BJ Novak's character commits fraud to impress the shareholders, he should be rewarded by liquidating the shareholders and give it to him and all the employees?

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PuzzleheadedPainOuch@reddit

It exists and is called Judicial Dissolution.

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Scrangdorber@reddit

This is called a monopoly break up, and it happened to Bell and needs to happen to Google. They shouldn't be allowed to control Adsense, Chrome, YouTube, AND Android. All 4 need to be separate companies, there's too much conflict of interest.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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drlsoccer08@reddit

In rare instances, that can happen.

For example, in the early 2000’s Enron was a big tech company that was found to have over reported revenue by 100 billion. They had effectively hid years of losses while reporting fantastic profits and growth each year. Essentially, the whole company was a fraud and massive pyramid scheme. Following this scandal breaking, Arthur Anderson, one of the big 5 accounting firms who was responsible for auditing Enron’s financial records came under scrutiny. It was found that “Andersen did not fulfill its professional responsibilities in connection with its audits of Enron's financial statements, or its obligation to bring to the attention of Enron's Board (or the Audit and Compliance Committee) concerns about Enron's internal contracts over the related-party transactions". At worst Anderson had actively helped Enron scam millions of people, and at best had been so incompetent and careless that they simply hadn’t noticed.

After the scandal the SEC stripped the entire company of its CPA licenses and its right to practice, killing the company.

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Mammoth-A-8712@reddit

AA was an LLP, not a corporation. The partners owned the firm, there were no shareholders.

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Mammoth-A-8712@reddit

"A hefty bonus to lawmakers"????

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random_account6721@reddit

If you incentivize something, it will happen more.

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Wide_Philosophy_8109@reddit

This is already a thing. If a company has $1,000 in assets, and $2,000 in legal fines, they're dissolved.

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CapitanM@reddit

This is r/crazyideas not r/awesomeideas . r/lostredditors .

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Impossible_Fennel_94@reddit

This would incentivize lawmakers to shut down corporations that don’t donate to them

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sickofgrouptxt@reddit

my understanding from the post it that the corporation would need to be found guilty of some crime

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Impossible_Fennel_94@reddit

What would stop lawmakers from selectively applying or investigating? Incentivizing guilty outcomes isn’t a good way to police

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sickofgrouptxt@reddit

you take away incentives paid to lawmakers. There is a reason we have a separation of powers. The lawmakers will pass the law and the executive enforce the law, and the judiciary serves judgement

the very fabric of our system stops lawmakers from shutting down corporations on a whim

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IHSV1855@reddit

This will be defeated by workarounds instantly.

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Quirky_kind@reddit

Corporations are not people. Human beings make the decisions that result in crimes against society by corporations. Human beings should be tried for murder, manslaughter, conspiracy, theft, and all the disgusting crimes committed by executives hiding behind the corporate veil.

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sickofgrouptxt@reddit

lawmakers should not get a bonus though

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NeverInsightful@reddit

If their crimes were that egregious, then the money from their being desolved should go to the victims or to pay for programs to correct what they did, not just roll it out to employees.

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OmNomSandvich@reddit

also, what money? their stock is obviously going to be worthless so you have to firesale their physical assets and hope they have cash reserves on hand.

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jancl0@reddit

The original proposal kind of encourages people to work for openly scummy corporations that they think might get caught doing something bad in the future. Not a very good long term plan

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NeverInsightful@reddit

Even better, it could encourage them to cause the corporation to do something horrible.

Imagine someone at Union Carbide leaving the spigot open and making a fortune when their action caused 20,000 deaths at Bhopal?

“Who cares? I got rich”

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jancl0@reddit

That's... That's not better

That's like saying "ugh this guy is a dick, but he hasn't done anything to get into prison yet. I just need to encourage him to kill someone so he can finally be locked away"

Congrats, you are now responsible for a crime that wouldn't have happened without your input

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Substantial_Back_865@reddit

Would have to be directly to the victims to avoid the victims getting shafted. Epstein victims didn’t get shit from those “won settlements”. Non-profit corporations did, which did absolutely nothing for the victims. Happens all the time.

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gravity_kills@reddit

PG&E has been found guilty of homicide. I think the employees have a better shot at running an electric company.

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Vicorin@reddit

You weren’t kidding. Plead guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter after they set an illegal campfire that went out of control and killed 84 people.

Worst corporate barbecue ever.

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gravity_kills@reddit

Like the meme, worst so far!

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Substantial_Back_865@reddit

This isn’t crazy, it’s flat out necessary to prevent them from weighing the costs of fines/settlements vs. following the law.

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Riccma02@reddit

Make corporations corporeal.

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matthewpepperl@reddit

I mean to me that sounds interesting but another solution is when something like that happens jail the entire c suit in a maximum security prison for 20 years and if found guilty of encouraging such things the share holders too or just kill fiduciary responsibility or both

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SpecialFlutters@reddit

this would open up the door for one hell of a strike technique

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Critical-Cost9068@reddit

“Hefty bonus to lawmakers?” Did a lawmaker post this?

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BarNo3385@reddit

I'd much rather continue to have a job, income, pension and so on, then be unemployed and have had the chunk of my pension invested in company shares rendered worthless.

Not to mention how does this even work? Do all the company assets just get sold off as in an insolvency (which earns pennies on the dollar), and then we get a cheque minus admin fees? Quite possible that still takes years and isn't worth more than a year or 2 of salary.

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Anianna@reddit

Yup. Also, corporations keep arguing for personhood: https://legalclarity.org/when-did-corporations-become-people-key-court-cases/

If they want personhood so badly, then they should be held to the same legal standards as any person. No Luigis needed if health insurance executives face murder, manslaughter, and reckless endangerment charges for denied treatments resulting in death or injury, for example. Shareholders may be keen to keep companies ethical if they stand to lose everything when the corporation is charged criminally and dissolved if found guilty.

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