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I'm of the opinion that there should be a corporate death penalty (though I oppose the death penalty in criminal cases). There's some situations that are so eth

I'm of the opinion that there should be a corporate death penalty (though I oppose the death penalty in criminal cases). There's some situations that are so ethically indefensible, wherein a corporation can cause incredible harm over a long period of time, that the only just outcome is for the company to be destroyed. The people responsible are shielded from any real consequence (how many people at VW knew about this, and how many are going to jail over it?). This is not a minor squabble over regulations; this is a conscious decision, involving many executives within the company, to willfully cause environmental destruction that directly costs human lives and health. This is one of those cases where the corporate death penalty is the only just outcome I can think of. $15 billion looks like a large sum; and maybe it's even enough to deter car companies from doing something similar in the future. Maybe. VW is worth $73 billion, and they generated a lot of money on the strength of their diesel campaigns. Amortized over the many years that they were shipping out these cars, it begins to look like a cost of doing business, rather than a massively punitive expense.

revelation 10y ago
Crushing the company hits mostly the lower ranks who legitimately had no part in any of it (presumably; if you're a soldier in the Wehrmacht or the guy dumping toxic buckets, this doesn't apply). We just need strict liability for corporate officers.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Maybe we should just split up big companies that screw up bad. Maybe in 2 pieces, maybe into lots more pieces.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Well if we go to war with another country, there are a lot of people working for that government who did not commit the atrocities. I'm sure the accountant or janitor didn't necessarily know or approve of the war crimes, they just needed a job and didn't hurt anyone. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight the war, you just recognize that sometimes innocent people are impacted. The blame lies with the leaders who did the bad thing. If they hadn't done the bad thing, their lower ranking innocent workers wouldn't have been impacted. Every business decision comes with a cost/benefit analysis. Hurting your employees goes into the "cost" side, and if you do the bad thing anyway, obviously the "benefits" outweighed the "cost" of potentially hurting your employees.
  - fmueller 10y ago
    That's different. Sometimes you have to defend yourself and then it's justified to go to war. Going to war without being threatened is a crime (like it was done numerous times by the US governement and is done now in Syria. Only because there is no judge makes it no less a crime.). But you don't have to defend yourself from this company. You aren't in danger. As a result punishing the workers would be nothing but a crime.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Does one really believe that German soldiers had zero idea of the atrocities that were being committed? There were reports in internation news, rumours, physical evidence and millions upon millions of people being rounded up. As for being the person dumping toxic buckets - they are doing the crime. They are culpable.
tacos 10y ago
Estimate states it did less than half a billion of dollars of damage to human lives, the environment, and the economy. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/29/vw-excess-emissions-linked-to-60-us-deaths-study.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/29/vw-excess-emissions-linked-to... Allowing some New World Judge the power to destroy all international subsidiaries of a global corporation with 610,067 employees at the stroke of a pen might not improve the situation.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Citation? WikiPedia places the economic cost at $39+ billion, by one measure. "A peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Pollution estimated that the fraudulent emissions are associated with 45 thousand disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and a value of life lost of at least 39 billion US dollars." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#Deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#D...
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Yes, that’s the additional cost from the NOx. But the cars produced in contrast far less CO2 than advertised – offsetting many of the costs.
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      Citation? Why wouldn't the experts who studied this have accounted for that? I tend to want to trust the science, if it comes from reputable sources. Anyway, CO2 is not comparable to NOx in terms of danger to human health; CO2 is a real problem, of course, but as I understand it, this was an environmental and human health trade-off that is not at all well-balanced. It produced out-sized harm in exchange for small reductions on the CO2 side. Even if the amount of NOx produced only increased by the same amount that CO2 decreased (which is not the case, if I understand it correctly), it would still be a bad trade. I'm no expert, but the experts I've read on the subject haven't been saying, "oh, it's really no big deal because CO2 went down."
tptacek 10y ago
Can you make a public policy case for a "death penalty" for multi-billion-dollar companies in mainstream industries? Who does that help? Who does it harm? Is it the most effective way to achieve the goal of the policy? Since we have neither a corporate death penalty nor adequate criminal statutes for malfeasance, how is the "corporate death penalty" superior than laws that make it more straightforward to hold managers and directors accountable criminally? People who are willing to commit crimes to enrich themselves using companies are unlikely to be especially motivated by the well-being of the company, its employees, or shareholders.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Often shareholders have a degree of culpability. Arms companies and tobacco are examples where in my view shareholders are using their money to promote harm. Automakers fall somewhere on the harm - good spectrum and I'd mostly not put them down as a net good. Fossil fuel emissions would be be the key reason. Shareholders have a choice where to put their money and many (most?) choose high returns over anything else. I'd say punishing this behaviour might be worth considering.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Every time we assess a multi-billion-dollar penalty against a public company, we acknowledge that its shareholders share some culpability. Do you think shareholders of a company like VW, which includes pretty much everyone with a retirement plan, shoulder _all_ the responsibility? Because that's pretty much what a "corporate death penalty" means.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      > Do you think shareholders of a company like VW, which includes pretty much everyone with a retirement plan, shoulder _all_ the responsibility? No. That's why I said "a degree of culpability".
      - tptacek 10y ago
ATsch 10y ago
Such a "Coorporate death penalty" is likely counterproductive in several ways. On one hand you could just open a new company under a similar name and continue buisiness as usual, on the the other hand, what happens to the workers employed by VW? It would kill entire cities in many places of the world. For example, Wolfsburg, the VW headquarter city has a population of ~100 000, the factory alone employs 57,000 people, ignoring administration and managment for VW in Wolfsburg. The shareholders would still be richer and don't have to fear punishment, the managers are still well networked enough to quickly get a new job at Siemens or wherever and the only people suffering at the end are the guys putting the seats into the chassis who had nothing to do with the whole situation. Also, what you are ignoring is that the US can't just come along and close a transnational or foreign company. Also, what about subsidaries? Does condé nast get closed if reddit violates the law? Does GM get closed if Opel cheats?
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Just a thought on this - presumably some workers knew what the device did and others must have suspected. "Just following orders" is not widely seen as OK.
  - cortesoft 10y ago
    I am pretty sure most of the manufacturing workers had no idea. Probably a very, very small percentage of the employees knew about the device.
    - ATsch 10y ago
      It was not even a device, it was a modified program. I highly doubt more than a dozen actual workers knew of it. How much management knew of it is hard to say. Detailed analysis of the cheat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSU1FPDiao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSU1FPDiao
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    There was no device for them to know about. Some engineers altered software that manipulated existing systems under guidance from management.
kqr2 10y ago
Enron was probably the last large example of a "corporate death penalty". Since then, in the US there has been a doctrine of minimizing "collateral consequences". Consequently there has been less criminal prosecution and more reliance on financial penalties. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/eric-holder-1999-memo_n_3384980.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/eric-holder-1999-me...
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Fun fact: I bought my first Aeron chair from the Arthur Andersen bankruptcy auction. I would have bought a shredder, too, but my dad recommended against it, saying, "Those shredders are worn out, son." So, my question is: Would we be better off with Enron still existing, including the same executive team (VW executive team is still largely unchanged)? Would we be better off with a more aggressive response to the banking crisis a few years ago? I believe ending criminal companies probably makes room for better companies, and in the long run makes our economy and our society healthier. I may be wrong; there are certainly negative impacts. But, I feel like the cost of looking the other way, or a slap on the wrist, is too high.
  - dionidium 10y ago
    So, my question is: Would we be better off with Enron still existing There are thousands -- millions? -- of innocent people who would definitely have been better off had Enron survived. You could be right about the long term, but you're playing pretty fast and loose with other people's money.
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      "you're playing pretty fast and loose with other people's money" I'd say Enron was playing fast and loose with other people's money; likewise VW was, too. Why blame me for the malfeasance of the executives at these companies, just because I think they shouldn't be allowed to do it again? The rolling blackouts Enron caused likely led to deaths (hospitals need power to keep machines and people running, refrigerators need power to prevent food-borne illnesses, etc.). It should be a really big deal when a company makes an intentional decision to harm people.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> There's some situations that are so ethically indefensible, wherein a corporation can cause incredible harm over a long period of time, that the only just outcome is for the company to be destroyed. This would hurt those with claims against the company but no hand in the decisions as much (if not more) than the responsible actors. A real corporate parallel of the death penalty -- or at least, an ultimate corporate penalty for serious violations -- should take a different form. A couple ideas: (1) personal, joint-and-several, liability of corporate officers with responsibility over (whether or not directly involved) and those employees actively directing the offense, (2) allowing piercing the corporate veil to make equity holders liable in the event the corporation itself and legally responsible officers and employees as described in (1) cannot meet the liability for the offense.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  I think it's a conversation that should be had; I try not to be one of those folks who says hand-wavey things like, "Something must be done!" But, in this case, I don't know what the right answer is. Evil, and that's what this behavior is, on this scale is hard to fathom and hard to discuss at human scale. You're probably right that there are better ways that cause less harm. I just don't know how to get there. Corporations at this level wield so much power, it's hard to figure out how governments or courts can effectively regulate them. Regardless, I don't think this settlement is enough, because the people involved (generally, though I think a couple of low-level engineers were fired) will continue going to work each day, drawing their massive salaries. I'm willing to concede I don't have all the answers on what justice really looks like, but I'm confident it's not this. This just isn't enough for years of cold, calculated, destruction of human life for profit.
  - TheCondor 10y ago
    I agree with you. It's a corporation, not an actual human. And there are a lot of people that profited and knew about it, at some point you can't salvage any of it. It's brutally difficult to implement though, Germany isn't going to do it. It also seems easy to game as you start to liquidate the company, what stops the shareholders from investing in a new holding company that just buys up the VAG assets? Maybe put a 30% tariffs on all of their imports for 30 years or something. What of splitting it up?
avn2109 10y ago
>> "...and maybe it's even enough to deter car companies from doing something similar in the future..." As anyone who's ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab knows, ~all [0] of VW's competition is doing something similar, to varying degrees of sophistication. I remain perplexed by the pitchforks, outrage, and witch-hunt mentality displayed towards VW alone. [0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mitsubishi-says-cars-failed-fuel-tests-after-employees-falsified-emissions-data-a6992291.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mitsubishi-s... and many more
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Can we just line them all up against the wall? Look, this is illegal behavior that costs human lives. I'm not saying VW is unique. I'm saying VW, who have been proven to be committing a crime on an unimaginably large scale for years, should pay a tremendous cost for that...ideally, the executives who knew should be going to jail. I'm not for giving other auto-makers a pass. Pitchforks may be warranted in their cases, as well. I don't know. But, to suggest that holding a company accountable for massive crimes is a "witch-hunt" is silly. There is no question about whether they've done this thing. The question is what they need to do to make amends. Edit: I'm gonna assume the downvoting is because of the seemingly hyperbolic claim of this costing human lives...but, it's not intended to be hyperbolic. According to the research I've seen, VW killed people with this practice: "A peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Research Letters estimated that approximately 59 premature deaths will be caused by the excess pollution produced between 2008 and 2015 by vehicles equipped with the defeat device in the U.S., the majority due to particulate pollution (87%) with the remainder due to ozone (13%). The study also found that making these vehicles emissions compliant by the end of 2016 would avert an additional 130 early deaths." (Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emissions-estimated-to-cause-59-premature-us-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emiss... )
  - rbobby 10y ago
    Under your theory of the crime it was some form of negligent homicide? And you want to hold all the receptionists accountable (lose of job) because they negligently did/failed to do what exactly?
WalterBright 10y ago
Be careful what you wish for. Venezuela did the "corporate death penalty" for a number of corporations, the result didn't end well.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  I don't think I see the comparison between what I've suggested (though I didn't really give enough detail to infer any real implementation plan for my suggestion, so I can see how there might be room for interpreting my comment in a lot of ways), and what Venezuela did when they socialized some companies and kicked some others out (though I am, by no means, an expert on the Venezuelan economy...perhaps you have a specific corporation in mind that committed some sort of atrocity in Venezuela and was shut down or forced to leave?). I think I need you to be more specific, is what I'm trying to say.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations-idUSBRE89701X20121008 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationa... Venezuela nationalized many corporations, which meant they were simply confiscated. That is pretty much giving them the death penalty.
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      Yes, I'm aware of the socialization of companies in Venezuala. I just don't understand what that has to do with what I'm suggesting. Were those companies that were socialized killing people, and was that the reason they were socialized? (And, to be clear: I'm not suggesting government ownership of companies.)
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        No, they weren't killing anyone. They were confiscated, which is what a "corporate death penalty" is. The result was the economy was utterly destroyed. What do you intend by "corporate death penalty" if not being siezed?
peterjlee 10y ago
Death penalty sort of happened for Tokyo Electric after the earthquake. Turns out Tokyo Electric had a chance to prevent the disaster but didn't and things got out of control. The company wasn't able to pay fines and the government couldn't simply shut down the company that supplied 30% of the nation's electricity. So all of the executives were fired and the company went under government control.
rbobby 10y ago
Group punishment for the actions of a few? Pretty indefensible. If you think it is defensible perhaps you could explain why it's just that an assembly line worker should lose his livelihood because a few folks implemented this scheme? The worker had no actual or theoretical knowledge of the "crime". Further, the worker had no way of even spotting that a "crime" was taking place. Group punishment just adds victims.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Companies die every day; almost never because of criminal behavior on the part of the company. People lose their jobs over it. Why not defend those companies from failing? Would you suggest that Enron should have continued to exist because employees losing their jobs is a bad thing? Do you think we, as a society, would be better or worse off if bad companies, like Enron (and Volkswagen), are allowed to continue to exist? There is a certain necessary destruction in the free market. There's all sorts of things that the market corrects for (by killing off weak companies); why shouldn't society also impose some corrections based on some basic ethical factors? Further, society does impose corrections on small companies; if my small company killed 59 people by hiding facts about my products, I'd pretty much certainly go to jail (as it should be). It is only very large corporations, and their executives, that are effectively immune to these kinds of corrections; even this, heralded as a huge penalty, is unlikely to impede VW significantly going forward. What's so bad about opening up a place in the market for new auto makers, who don't cheat the system for profit? We are talking about criminal activity here over a period of years, not mere "irregularities".
  - philippnagel 10y ago
    You speak of "free market" but next you would like to "impose some corrections"? Doesn't sound like free market at all. How about you stop buying VW cars if you disagree with what the company did (let the market do its work)?
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      Perhaps re-read my comment. I was not advocating a "free market" solution to this particular problem, I was pointing out that were this a market failure instead of an ethical failure, no one would be arguing VW needs to continue to exist because "jobs". We do not have a perfectly "free market" (and that's OK), though markets are nice things, and in some cases I am in agreement with wanting more free markets. But, do you sincerely believe the right answer to a company killing people is a boycott?
brc 10y ago
I am constantly amazed at what gets written in the comments section of a site ostensibly focussed on startup companies and the tech industry. Quite frankly it can often be scary to see what people come up with in their outrageous outrage.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Do you genuinely find my comment "scary"?
  - duncan_bayne 10y ago
    Dunno about the OP, but I do. I look at some comments and actually get the chills imagining what the poster would come up with, if he or she got hands on the reigns of power.
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      Luckily for all of us, I guess, I have no aspirations to politics.
      - duncan_bayne 10y ago
        I'd still for you, sight unseen, over Trump or Hillary. Not sure if you should take that as a compliment ;)
    - comex 10y ago
      Personally, I think what was being proposed would be an awful idea, but not so odious that merely hearing idle conversation about it is disturbing. I mainly save that category for ideas with racist undertones and the likes. I suppose that's because in most such debates, an appropriate or at least plausible approach exists along similar lines to what's being discussed, albeit less extreme - in this case, what actually happened, fining a company over ten billion dollars, could be seen as a less extreme version of a corporate death penalty, and there are points in between that are at least not completely unthinkable - so the basic emotions behind the debate are a reasonable framework. Whereas with ideology motivated by prejudice, I think usually you should essentially throw the whole thing away and start fresh, because the premise is fundamentally irrational. YMMV. (Especially if you have a Volkswagen.)
foobarian 10y ago
Can you define what a corporate death penalty entails? Going off a direct analogy with a human, it appears it would require destroying the equivalent of the brain, so perhaps a forced wiping of the IT infrastructure, inventory ledgers, blueprints? Probably also a seizure of all patents. At the end of the day it's just money, except it's probably simpler to just take it in cash. (Or however the $15B is expected to be disbursed).
- Hannan 10y ago
  >> Probably also a seizure of all patents. I had been following this thread with a certain amount of blasé, but the thought of seizing a patent portfolio and releasing it into the public domain makes me raise an eyebrow or three.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Talking about the "brain" of a corporation may be pushing the analogy too far. And, I believe I've probably made this a much more contentious conversation than it needed to be by using emotionally charged language like "death penalty". And, I think a lot of folks are interpreting my opinion as much more black and white than it is. My thinking is merely that at some point, we as a society should probably consider refusing to allow a corporation that has shown an ongoing wilful disregard of human life to continue to exist.
  - foobarian 10y ago
    Fair enough. I was mostly intrigued by the concept of a corporate death penalty, or stopping one from existing (however you name it). How do you actually do it? If you block the name, they can just rename it. If you fire everybody, they can instantly join a replacement company. You could put a restraining order on the officers from working in the same industry (a la noncompete contracts). There is lots more comments on this below, it's just an interesting problem.
CorporateTool 10y ago
I agree ... to a point. Instead of dissolving the entire corporation, I think that there should be (in cases like this) where the "Corporate Veil" can be pierced and individuals (in this case, Executive Officers) can be be brought to trial, sentenced, and held personally accountable for their decisions - including prison sentences. That would get the CxO in other companies attention, in a double-quick-time fashion. I do agree that fines that seem astronomical to us (USD15Bn is huge in any personal context), to a corporation can be just The Cost of Doing Business. Depending on how long they've been doing this, they may have made twice that amount.
woodpanel 10y ago
How is this diesel-scandal the fault of the whole company and not of a few people who actively engaged in wrongdoings?! Isn't this the whole reason for the invention of limited companies in the first place? It's considered a progress in human society to have developed limited liability laws. Besides, the good thing about not killing juristic persons is also true for not killing natural persons - it's considered an improvement by and large if a society gets rid of the medieval practice of executing prisoners.
- sitkack 10y ago
  It really sounds like you have taken the "people are corporations" concept to heart.
fmueller 10y ago
But all civilized countries have no death penalty for good reasons. No need to introduce them for companies.
- Fej 10y ago
  The difference, obviously, is that it's not literal. In a corporate death penalty, no one is dying, everyone can bounce back and have a second chance (or third, or fourth, etc.) at success. With a real death, that's it. The end of consciousness. I'm sorry, but I find the comparison ludicrous, despite the name.
  - fmueller 10y ago
    The employees most likely will recover but the company won't. So there is no bouncing back for the company, it's not getting a second chance if it's discovered that a mistake has been made. So in my opinion the comparison can be made.
    - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
      A company is a legal fiction; not an actual person.
- warkid 10y ago
  > But all civilized countries have no death penalty for good reasons. Civilized like in 'western civilization'? E.g. USA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Unit...
  - fmueller 10y ago
    It's a self referential statement.
  - Qantourisc 10y ago
    conclusion -> USA is not a civilized country.
Fej 10y ago
While we're on the topic, can we sentence BP to death? They destroyed the livelihoods of thousands, if not millions of innocent people, and thoroughly polluted huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico coastline (and a bit of the Atlantic coast, as well). They caused the biggest single environmental disaster in United States history, and it was due to negligence. If this wasn't an accident, but rather a deliberate attack "in the name of Islam", we would have gone back into Iraq. It would have been 9/11 all over again, but with far more actual damage caused. But since they're a company, they get a slap on the wrist and keep on going. (I'm exaggerating, I know they paid a lot, but they're still more than alive and kicking. I just wish their stock tanked more after the Brexit vote.) If you want to make an example of a company with a clear-cut case, you can't really do better than this. They committed mass destruction of the Southern coastline. Seriously, if this was intentional it would be a war crime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_C...
- tajen 10y ago
  > If it had been a deliberate attack Nonono, don't compare anything to terrorism please: We have a far to belligerous action on terrorism, while we don't do much against other causes of death. Smoking still causes an order or magnitude more deaths of innocents than terrorism (non-smokers) and the people still defend it's ok to smoke on the sidewalk (and defend it's ok to kill Muslims without trial as long as it's a military action). Responses to terrorism are disproportionate.
  - xapata 10y ago
    That's why it's worth comparing things to terrorism, to reveal how weakly we respond to other threats.
    - moptar 10y ago
      That's kind of like Godwin's law. It's worth comparing things to the Nazis to reveal how little we despise other bad actions. But we have unreasonably strong negative feelings about both Nazis and terrorism, so it's not really helpful.
Hermel 10y ago
If all affected countries punished VW as hard as the US, the cumulative fine would be hundreds of billions. That would indeed be a death penalty. In fact, 15 billion is disproportionate in my opinion.
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  15 billion disproportionate ? Depends on how many people where effected (or even died) by this. Time there cost. I personally have no idea on these numbers, and it would largely be speculation.
deleted 10y ago
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Hermel 10y ago
> VW is worth $73 billion According to Google finance, its 56 billion, and probably less after this news. The US branch is probably worth 10% of that, or 5.6 billion. That way, the 15 billion are basically a three-fold death penalty.
deleted 10y ago
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Karunamon 10y ago
Has there been any serious (I.e. not clearly biased by way of affiliation) study into the actual effects of the added pollution? We're not talking smog monsters here, we're talking one chemical in particular (NPC), from one kind of engine by one car maker. I don't want to sound like I'm downplaying this, but given the kind of comments I see about this, I want to think the visceral reaction is based in rationality. Is it?
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  There's been some articles on the subject (which is, admittedly complicated, since so many things shoot toxins into the air, and our understanding of its impact is still uncertain): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emissions-estimated-to-cause-59-premature-us-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emiss... http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did-volkswagens-deception-cause-in-us.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did... I guess it's possible to look at these numbers, and compare them to the number of deaths caused by autos in general (even the ones that follow all the rules), and consider it a small thing; something that doesn't justify a massively disruptive response. But, from my perspective, VW made a conscious decision, and an ongoing choice over many years, to violate the law, and caused illegal levels of dangerous emissions in exchange for greater profits. So...I don't think I'm responding irrationally when I am extremely critical of a company that would make those decisions over a span of many years, knowingly trading human life and human health for greater profits. I'm critical of internal combustion auto companies, in general, but I'm not calling for them to be destroyed, and I don't go out of my way to talk trash about them. I'm pretty specific in my ire toward VW (though others have suggested several car manufacturers are pulling similar tricks and emitting illegal and dangerous levels in real world environments), and if that's the case, I'd consider those to be criminal companies, as well. I hope such companies will also be investigated, and also face consequences. But, "everybody's doing it" shouldn't be a defense when the stakes are this high.
Arnt 10y ago
A corporate death penalty already exists, it's called bankruptcy.
alkonaut 10y ago
There are many ways a big corporation could be killed. If some EU regulatory body decided that after this has happened in the US, all EU consumers are entitled to the same thing - VW would be dead instantly. Same if they e.g. issued a ban on VW selling cars in the EU for say 5 years.
supercarrot 10y ago
Animal agriculture industry causes incredible harm long term. For example a leaking natural gas well in southern California vented almost 100,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere before it was plugged. This is not even close to the amount of methane that cows of this world fart over a time period of a year (72-92 million metric tonnes (1,000,000 * 72|92)). Methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to global warming. Now, would you demand corporate death of Tyson Foods (biggest polluter of water in USA)? Would you demand corporate death of American animal agriculture? I believe not. I mean, Brazil cuts 91% of Amazon rainforest just for the use of soybean and cattle production. This will have extreme long-term consequences. Animal agriculture causes 90%+ species extinction events. Overfishing disturbs the ecosystems so much that by 2048 oceans will be dead. Already, the ocean dead zones are caused mostly by animal agriculture drains. This is just some oil/industries that use oil shaky attitude. The biggest polluter of all is animal agriculture.
dmichulke 10y ago
I hope that your penalty also applies to other entities such as states. In this case please relate the say 1k deaths caused by Volskwagen to the number of people killed in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, .. (you get the point) and multiply with approx 15 million $ per dead. Have the US transfer this amount (should be north of a trillion) to the victims or their representatives and serve justice!
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Yeah, that's worth talking about. Probably not in this thread, though, as I think it's pretty far off-topic. But, I'd prefer talking about prevention of further harm, rather than just paying off the survivors.
jacquesm 10y ago
I don't think a corporate death penalty (revoking the company's license to operate) is the proper answer. Figuring out the actual damage done, a punitive fine with a multiplier on top of that, being forced to take back all products and significantly more incidences of managers going to jail would all be excellent things to try first. The problem is that the regular factory workers are the ones that would end up paying the bigger price in a corporate death penalty situation, and that companies trading abroad would be able to escape the penalty (in this case, for instance, the US could simply forbid VW to do business on their soil).
appleflaxen 10y ago
I agree with you, depending on the implementation. Many people replying seem to think you are advocating the execution of every man and woman who work for the company. I suspect that's not what you mean. But how do you execute the entity economically? To me, the right way to do it would be for the US government to take ownership of all the stock, and for the stock to be resold under a new corporate name. A criminal trial should then take place, with the C-suite officers and board of directors under scrutiny regarding their roles in the decisions, with clemency/immunity given to engineers and laborers for their full and complete testimony. The only way the behavior changes is if you sanction it with meaningful consequences.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  All that sounds pretty good, to me. My words were probably poorly chosen; and it was a casual comment, intended to be taken casually, not as a call for a bloody revolution. I thought my disclaimer of being opposed to the actual death penalty for humans was sufficient to alleviate any fear that I actually ever want anyone killed, but the angry response seems to indicate otherwise.
dionidium 10y ago
The way to solve the problems that arise from the fact that organizations are not people isn't to treat them even more like people. You can't punish an abstract group. The others here are right: it would have enormous negative consequences. But that's beside the point. It wouldn't even do what you think it would do. There is nothing to punish. You're swinging your fists at a ghost.

revelation 10y ago

Crushing the company hits mostly the lower ranks who legitimately had no part in any of it (presumably; if you're a soldier in the Wehrmacht or the guy dumping toxic buckets, this doesn't apply). We just need strict liability for corporate officers.

maxerickson 10y ago
Maybe we should just split up big companies that screw up bad. Maybe in 2 pieces, maybe into lots more pieces.
freehunter 10y ago
Well if we go to war with another country, there are a lot of people working for that government who did not commit the atrocities. I'm sure the accountant or janitor didn't necessarily know or approve of the war crimes, they just needed a job and didn't hurt anyone. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight the war, you just recognize that sometimes innocent people are impacted. The blame lies with the leaders who did the bad thing. If they hadn't done the bad thing, their lower ranking innocent workers wouldn't have been impacted. Every business decision comes with a cost/benefit analysis. Hurting your employees goes into the "cost" side, and if you do the bad thing anyway, obviously the "benefits" outweighed the "cost" of potentially hurting your employees.
- fmueller 10y ago
  That's different. Sometimes you have to defend yourself and then it's justified to go to war. Going to war without being threatened is a crime (like it was done numerous times by the US governement and is done now in Syria. Only because there is no judge makes it no less a crime.). But you don't have to defend yourself from this company. You aren't in danger. As a result punishing the workers would be nothing but a crime.
lostlogin 10y ago
Does one really believe that German soldiers had zero idea of the atrocities that were being committed? There were reports in internation news, rumours, physical evidence and millions upon millions of people being rounded up. As for being the person dumping toxic buckets - they are doing the crime. They are culpable.

tacos 10y ago

Estimate states it did less than half a billion of dollars of damage to human lives, the environment, and the economy. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/29/vw-excess-emissions-linked-to-60-us-deaths-study.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/29/vw-excess-emissions-linked-to... Allowing some New World Judge the power to destroy all international subsidiaries of a global corporation with 610,067 employees at the stroke of a pen might not improve the situation.

SwellJoe 10y ago
Citation? WikiPedia places the economic cost at $39+ billion, by one measure. "A peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Pollution estimated that the fraudulent emissions are associated with 45 thousand disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and a value of life lost of at least 39 billion US dollars." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#Deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#D...
- kuschku 10y ago
  Yes, that’s the additional cost from the NOx. But the cars produced in contrast far less CO2 than advertised – offsetting many of the costs.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    Citation? Why wouldn't the experts who studied this have accounted for that? I tend to want to trust the science, if it comes from reputable sources. Anyway, CO2 is not comparable to NOx in terms of danger to human health; CO2 is a real problem, of course, but as I understand it, this was an environmental and human health trade-off that is not at all well-balanced. It produced out-sized harm in exchange for small reductions on the CO2 side. Even if the amount of NOx produced only increased by the same amount that CO2 decreased (which is not the case, if I understand it correctly), it would still be a bad trade. I'm no expert, but the experts I've read on the subject haven't been saying, "oh, it's really no big deal because CO2 went down."

tptacek 10y ago

Can you make a public policy case for a "death penalty" for multi-billion-dollar companies in mainstream industries? Who does that help? Who does it harm? Is it the most effective way to achieve the goal of the policy? Since we have neither a corporate death penalty nor adequate criminal statutes for malfeasance, how is the "corporate death penalty" superior than laws that make it more straightforward to hold managers and directors accountable criminally? People who are willing to commit crimes to enrich themselves using companies are unlikely to be especially motivated by the well-being of the company, its employees, or shareholders.

lostlogin 10y ago
Often shareholders have a degree of culpability. Arms companies and tobacco are examples where in my view shareholders are using their money to promote harm. Automakers fall somewhere on the harm - good spectrum and I'd mostly not put them down as a net good. Fossil fuel emissions would be be the key reason. Shareholders have a choice where to put their money and many (most?) choose high returns over anything else. I'd say punishing this behaviour might be worth considering.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Every time we assess a multi-billion-dollar penalty against a public company, we acknowledge that its shareholders share some culpability. Do you think shareholders of a company like VW, which includes pretty much everyone with a retirement plan, shoulder _all_ the responsibility? Because that's pretty much what a "corporate death penalty" means.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    > Do you think shareholders of a company like VW, which includes pretty much everyone with a retirement plan, shoulder _all_ the responsibility? No. That's why I said "a degree of culpability".
    - tptacek 10y ago

ATsch 10y ago

Such a "Coorporate death penalty" is likely counterproductive in several ways. On one hand you could just open a new company under a similar name and continue buisiness as usual, on the the other hand, what happens to the workers employed by VW? It would kill entire cities in many places of the world. For example, Wolfsburg, the VW headquarter city has a population of ~100 000, the factory alone employs 57,000 people, ignoring administration and managment for VW in Wolfsburg. The shareholders would still be richer and don't have to fear punishment, the managers are still well networked enough to quickly get a new job at Siemens or wherever and the only people suffering at the end are the guys putting the seats into the chassis who had nothing to do with the whole situation. Also, what you are ignoring is that the US can't just come along and close a transnational or foreign company. Also, what about subsidaries? Does condé nast get closed if reddit violates the law? Does GM get closed if Opel cheats?

lostlogin 10y ago
Just a thought on this - presumably some workers knew what the device did and others must have suspected. "Just following orders" is not widely seen as OK.
- cortesoft 10y ago
  I am pretty sure most of the manufacturing workers had no idea. Probably a very, very small percentage of the employees knew about the device.
  - ATsch 10y ago
    It was not even a device, it was a modified program. I highly doubt more than a dozen actual workers knew of it. How much management knew of it is hard to say. Detailed analysis of the cheat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSU1FPDiao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZSU1FPDiao
- cptskippy 10y ago
  There was no device for them to know about. Some engineers altered software that manipulated existing systems under guidance from management.

kqr2 10y ago

Enron was probably the last large example of a "corporate death penalty". Since then, in the US there has been a doctrine of minimizing "collateral consequences". Consequently there has been less criminal prosecution and more reliance on financial penalties. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/eric-holder-1999-memo_n_3384980.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/eric-holder-1999-me...

SwellJoe 10y ago
Fun fact: I bought my first Aeron chair from the Arthur Andersen bankruptcy auction. I would have bought a shredder, too, but my dad recommended against it, saying, "Those shredders are worn out, son." So, my question is: Would we be better off with Enron still existing, including the same executive team (VW executive team is still largely unchanged)? Would we be better off with a more aggressive response to the banking crisis a few years ago? I believe ending criminal companies probably makes room for better companies, and in the long run makes our economy and our society healthier. I may be wrong; there are certainly negative impacts. But, I feel like the cost of looking the other way, or a slap on the wrist, is too high.
- dionidium 10y ago
  So, my question is: Would we be better off with Enron still existing There are thousands -- millions? -- of innocent people who would definitely have been better off had Enron survived. You could be right about the long term, but you're playing pretty fast and loose with other people's money.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    "you're playing pretty fast and loose with other people's money" I'd say Enron was playing fast and loose with other people's money; likewise VW was, too. Why blame me for the malfeasance of the executives at these companies, just because I think they shouldn't be allowed to do it again? The rolling blackouts Enron caused likely led to deaths (hospitals need power to keep machines and people running, refrigerators need power to prevent food-borne illnesses, etc.). It should be a really big deal when a company makes an intentional decision to harm people.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> There's some situations that are so ethically indefensible, wherein a corporation can cause incredible harm over a long period of time, that the only just outcome is for the company to be destroyed. This would hurt those with claims against the company but no hand in the decisions as much (if not more) than the responsible actors. A real corporate parallel of the death penalty -- or at least, an ultimate corporate penalty for serious violations -- should take a different form. A couple ideas: (1) personal, joint-and-several, liability of corporate officers with responsibility over (whether or not directly involved) and those employees actively directing the offense, (2) allowing piercing the corporate veil to make equity holders liable in the event the corporation itself and legally responsible officers and employees as described in (1) cannot meet the liability for the offense.

SwellJoe 10y ago
I think it's a conversation that should be had; I try not to be one of those folks who says hand-wavey things like, "Something must be done!" But, in this case, I don't know what the right answer is. Evil, and that's what this behavior is, on this scale is hard to fathom and hard to discuss at human scale. You're probably right that there are better ways that cause less harm. I just don't know how to get there. Corporations at this level wield so much power, it's hard to figure out how governments or courts can effectively regulate them. Regardless, I don't think this settlement is enough, because the people involved (generally, though I think a couple of low-level engineers were fired) will continue going to work each day, drawing their massive salaries. I'm willing to concede I don't have all the answers on what justice really looks like, but I'm confident it's not this. This just isn't enough for years of cold, calculated, destruction of human life for profit.
- TheCondor 10y ago
  I agree with you. It's a corporation, not an actual human. And there are a lot of people that profited and knew about it, at some point you can't salvage any of it. It's brutally difficult to implement though, Germany isn't going to do it. It also seems easy to game as you start to liquidate the company, what stops the shareholders from investing in a new holding company that just buys up the VAG assets? Maybe put a 30% tariffs on all of their imports for 30 years or something. What of splitting it up?

avn2109 10y ago

>> "...and maybe it's even enough to deter car companies from doing something similar in the future..." As anyone who's ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab knows, ~all [0] of VW's competition is doing something similar, to varying degrees of sophistication. I remain perplexed by the pitchforks, outrage, and witch-hunt mentality displayed towards VW alone. [0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mitsubishi-says-cars-failed-fuel-tests-after-employees-falsified-emissions-data-a6992291.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mitsubishi-s... and many more

SwellJoe 10y ago
Can we just line them all up against the wall? Look, this is illegal behavior that costs human lives. I'm not saying VW is unique. I'm saying VW, who have been proven to be committing a crime on an unimaginably large scale for years, should pay a tremendous cost for that...ideally, the executives who knew should be going to jail. I'm not for giving other auto-makers a pass. Pitchforks may be warranted in their cases, as well. I don't know. But, to suggest that holding a company accountable for massive crimes is a "witch-hunt" is silly. There is no question about whether they've done this thing. The question is what they need to do to make amends. Edit: I'm gonna assume the downvoting is because of the seemingly hyperbolic claim of this costing human lives...but, it's not intended to be hyperbolic. According to the research I've seen, VW killed people with this practice: "A peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Research Letters estimated that approximately 59 premature deaths will be caused by the excess pollution produced between 2008 and 2015 by vehicles equipped with the defeat device in the U.S., the majority due to particulate pollution (87%) with the remainder due to ozone (13%). The study also found that making these vehicles emissions compliant by the end of 2016 would avert an additional 130 early deaths." (Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emissions-estimated-to-cause-59-premature-us-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emiss... )
- rbobby 10y ago
  Under your theory of the crime it was some form of negligent homicide? And you want to hold all the receptionists accountable (lose of job) because they negligently did/failed to do what exactly?

WalterBright 10y ago

Be careful what you wish for. Venezuela did the "corporate death penalty" for a number of corporations, the result didn't end well.

SwellJoe 10y ago
I don't think I see the comparison between what I've suggested (though I didn't really give enough detail to infer any real implementation plan for my suggestion, so I can see how there might be room for interpreting my comment in a lot of ways), and what Venezuela did when they socialized some companies and kicked some others out (though I am, by no means, an expert on the Venezuelan economy...perhaps you have a specific corporation in mind that committed some sort of atrocity in Venezuela and was shut down or forced to leave?). I think I need you to be more specific, is what I'm trying to say.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations-idUSBRE89701X20121008 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationa... Venezuela nationalized many corporations, which meant they were simply confiscated. That is pretty much giving them the death penalty.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    Yes, I'm aware of the socialization of companies in Venezuala. I just don't understand what that has to do with what I'm suggesting. Were those companies that were socialized killing people, and was that the reason they were socialized? (And, to be clear: I'm not suggesting government ownership of companies.)
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      No, they weren't killing anyone. They were confiscated, which is what a "corporate death penalty" is. The result was the economy was utterly destroyed. What do you intend by "corporate death penalty" if not being siezed?

peterjlee 10y ago

Death penalty sort of happened for Tokyo Electric after the earthquake. Turns out Tokyo Electric had a chance to prevent the disaster but didn't and things got out of control. The company wasn't able to pay fines and the government couldn't simply shut down the company that supplied 30% of the nation's electricity. So all of the executives were fired and the company went under government control.

rbobby 10y ago

Group punishment for the actions of a few? Pretty indefensible. If you think it is defensible perhaps you could explain why it's just that an assembly line worker should lose his livelihood because a few folks implemented this scheme? The worker had no actual or theoretical knowledge of the "crime". Further, the worker had no way of even spotting that a "crime" was taking place. Group punishment just adds victims.

SwellJoe 10y ago
Companies die every day; almost never because of criminal behavior on the part of the company. People lose their jobs over it. Why not defend those companies from failing? Would you suggest that Enron should have continued to exist because employees losing their jobs is a bad thing? Do you think we, as a society, would be better or worse off if bad companies, like Enron (and Volkswagen), are allowed to continue to exist? There is a certain necessary destruction in the free market. There's all sorts of things that the market corrects for (by killing off weak companies); why shouldn't society also impose some corrections based on some basic ethical factors? Further, society does impose corrections on small companies; if my small company killed 59 people by hiding facts about my products, I'd pretty much certainly go to jail (as it should be). It is only very large corporations, and their executives, that are effectively immune to these kinds of corrections; even this, heralded as a huge penalty, is unlikely to impede VW significantly going forward. What's so bad about opening up a place in the market for new auto makers, who don't cheat the system for profit? We are talking about criminal activity here over a period of years, not mere "irregularities".
- philippnagel 10y ago
  You speak of "free market" but next you would like to "impose some corrections"? Doesn't sound like free market at all. How about you stop buying VW cars if you disagree with what the company did (let the market do its work)?
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    Perhaps re-read my comment. I was not advocating a "free market" solution to this particular problem, I was pointing out that were this a market failure instead of an ethical failure, no one would be arguing VW needs to continue to exist because "jobs". We do not have a perfectly "free market" (and that's OK), though markets are nice things, and in some cases I am in agreement with wanting more free markets. But, do you sincerely believe the right answer to a company killing people is a boycott?

brc 10y ago

I am constantly amazed at what gets written in the comments section of a site ostensibly focussed on startup companies and the tech industry. Quite frankly it can often be scary to see what people come up with in their outrageous outrage.

SwellJoe 10y ago
Do you genuinely find my comment "scary"?
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  Dunno about the OP, but I do. I look at some comments and actually get the chills imagining what the poster would come up with, if he or she got hands on the reigns of power.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    Luckily for all of us, I guess, I have no aspirations to politics.
    - duncan_bayne 10y ago
      I'd still for you, sight unseen, over Trump or Hillary. Not sure if you should take that as a compliment ;)
  - comex 10y ago
    Personally, I think what was being proposed would be an awful idea, but not so odious that merely hearing idle conversation about it is disturbing. I mainly save that category for ideas with racist undertones and the likes. I suppose that's because in most such debates, an appropriate or at least plausible approach exists along similar lines to what's being discussed, albeit less extreme - in this case, what actually happened, fining a company over ten billion dollars, could be seen as a less extreme version of a corporate death penalty, and there are points in between that are at least not completely unthinkable - so the basic emotions behind the debate are a reasonable framework. Whereas with ideology motivated by prejudice, I think usually you should essentially throw the whole thing away and start fresh, because the premise is fundamentally irrational. YMMV. (Especially if you have a Volkswagen.)

foobarian 10y ago

Can you define what a corporate death penalty entails? Going off a direct analogy with a human, it appears it would require destroying the equivalent of the brain, so perhaps a forced wiping of the IT infrastructure, inventory ledgers, blueprints? Probably also a seizure of all patents. At the end of the day it's just money, except it's probably simpler to just take it in cash. (Or however the $15B is expected to be disbursed).

Hannan 10y ago
>> Probably also a seizure of all patents. I had been following this thread with a certain amount of blasé, but the thought of seizing a patent portfolio and releasing it into the public domain makes me raise an eyebrow or three.
SwellJoe 10y ago
Talking about the "brain" of a corporation may be pushing the analogy too far. And, I believe I've probably made this a much more contentious conversation than it needed to be by using emotionally charged language like "death penalty". And, I think a lot of folks are interpreting my opinion as much more black and white than it is. My thinking is merely that at some point, we as a society should probably consider refusing to allow a corporation that has shown an ongoing wilful disregard of human life to continue to exist.
- foobarian 10y ago
  Fair enough. I was mostly intrigued by the concept of a corporate death penalty, or stopping one from existing (however you name it). How do you actually do it? If you block the name, they can just rename it. If you fire everybody, they can instantly join a replacement company. You could put a restraining order on the officers from working in the same industry (a la noncompete contracts). There is lots more comments on this below, it's just an interesting problem.

CorporateTool 10y ago

I agree ... to a point. Instead of dissolving the entire corporation, I think that there should be (in cases like this) where the "Corporate Veil" can be pierced and individuals (in this case, Executive Officers) can be be brought to trial, sentenced, and held personally accountable for their decisions - including prison sentences. That would get the CxO in other companies attention, in a double-quick-time fashion. I do agree that fines that seem astronomical to us (USD15Bn is huge in any personal context), to a corporation can be just The Cost of Doing Business. Depending on how long they've been doing this, they may have made twice that amount.

woodpanel 10y ago

How is this diesel-scandal the fault of the whole company and not of a few people who actively engaged in wrongdoings?! Isn't this the whole reason for the invention of limited companies in the first place? It's considered a progress in human society to have developed limited liability laws. Besides, the good thing about not killing juristic persons is also true for not killing natural persons - it's considered an improvement by and large if a society gets rid of the medieval practice of executing prisoners.

sitkack 10y ago
It really sounds like you have taken the "people are corporations" concept to heart.

fmueller 10y ago

But all civilized countries have no death penalty for good reasons. No need to introduce them for companies.

Fej 10y ago
The difference, obviously, is that it's not literal. In a corporate death penalty, no one is dying, everyone can bounce back and have a second chance (or third, or fourth, etc.) at success. With a real death, that's it. The end of consciousness. I'm sorry, but I find the comparison ludicrous, despite the name.
- fmueller 10y ago
  The employees most likely will recover but the company won't. So there is no bouncing back for the company, it's not getting a second chance if it's discovered that a mistake has been made. So in my opinion the comparison can be made.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    A company is a legal fiction; not an actual person.
warkid 10y ago
> But all civilized countries have no death penalty for good reasons. Civilized like in 'western civilization'? E.g. USA? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Unit...
- fmueller 10y ago
  It's a self referential statement.
- Qantourisc 10y ago
  conclusion -> USA is not a civilized country.

Fej 10y ago

While we're on the topic, can we sentence BP to death? They destroyed the livelihoods of thousands, if not millions of innocent people, and thoroughly polluted huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico coastline (and a bit of the Atlantic coast, as well). They caused the biggest single environmental disaster in United States history, and it was due to negligence. If this wasn't an accident, but rather a deliberate attack "in the name of Islam", we would have gone back into Iraq. It would have been 9/11 all over again, but with far more actual damage caused. But since they're a company, they get a slap on the wrist and keep on going. (I'm exaggerating, I know they paid a lot, but they're still more than alive and kicking. I just wish their stock tanked more after the Brexit vote.) If you want to make an example of a company with a clear-cut case, you can't really do better than this. They committed mass destruction of the Southern coastline. Seriously, if this was intentional it would be a war crime. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Convention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_C...

tajen 10y ago
> If it had been a deliberate attack Nonono, don't compare anything to terrorism please: We have a far to belligerous action on terrorism, while we don't do much against other causes of death. Smoking still causes an order or magnitude more deaths of innocents than terrorism (non-smokers) and the people still defend it's ok to smoke on the sidewalk (and defend it's ok to kill Muslims without trial as long as it's a military action). Responses to terrorism are disproportionate.
- xapata 10y ago
  That's why it's worth comparing things to terrorism, to reveal how weakly we respond to other threats.
  - moptar 10y ago
    That's kind of like Godwin's law. It's worth comparing things to the Nazis to reveal how little we despise other bad actions. But we have unreasonably strong negative feelings about both Nazis and terrorism, so it's not really helpful.

Hermel 10y ago

If all affected countries punished VW as hard as the US, the cumulative fine would be hundreds of billions. That would indeed be a death penalty. In fact, 15 billion is disproportionate in my opinion.

Qantourisc 10y ago
15 billion disproportionate ? Depends on how many people where effected (or even died) by this. Time there cost. I personally have no idea on these numbers, and it would largely be speculation.

deleted 10y ago

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Hermel 10y ago

> VW is worth $73 billion According to Google finance, its 56 billion, and probably less after this news. The US branch is probably worth 10% of that, or 5.6 billion. That way, the 15 billion are basically a three-fold death penalty.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Karunamon 10y ago

Has there been any serious (I.e. not clearly biased by way of affiliation) study into the actual effects of the added pollution? We're not talking smog monsters here, we're talking one chemical in particular (NPC), from one kind of engine by one car maker. I don't want to sound like I'm downplaying this, but given the kind of comments I see about this, I want to think the visceral reaction is based in rationality. Is it?

SwellJoe 10y ago
There's been some articles on the subject (which is, admittedly complicated, since so many things shoot toxins into the air, and our understanding of its impact is still uncertain): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emissions-estimated-to-cause-59-premature-us-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/vw-emiss... http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did-volkswagens-deception-cause-in-us.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did... I guess it's possible to look at these numbers, and compare them to the number of deaths caused by autos in general (even the ones that follow all the rules), and consider it a small thing; something that doesn't justify a massively disruptive response. But, from my perspective, VW made a conscious decision, and an ongoing choice over many years, to violate the law, and caused illegal levels of dangerous emissions in exchange for greater profits. So...I don't think I'm responding irrationally when I am extremely critical of a company that would make those decisions over a span of many years, knowingly trading human life and human health for greater profits. I'm critical of internal combustion auto companies, in general, but I'm not calling for them to be destroyed, and I don't go out of my way to talk trash about them. I'm pretty specific in my ire toward VW (though others have suggested several car manufacturers are pulling similar tricks and emitting illegal and dangerous levels in real world environments), and if that's the case, I'd consider those to be criminal companies, as well. I hope such companies will also be investigated, and also face consequences. But, "everybody's doing it" shouldn't be a defense when the stakes are this high.

Arnt 10y ago

A corporate death penalty already exists, it's called bankruptcy.

alkonaut 10y ago

There are many ways a big corporation could be killed. If some EU regulatory body decided that after this has happened in the US, all EU consumers are entitled to the same thing - VW would be dead instantly. Same if they e.g. issued a ban on VW selling cars in the EU for say 5 years.

supercarrot 10y ago

Animal agriculture industry causes incredible harm long term. For example a leaking natural gas well in southern California vented almost 100,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere before it was plugged. This is not even close to the amount of methane that cows of this world fart over a time period of a year (72-92 million metric tonnes (1,000,000 * 72|92)). Methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to global warming. Now, would you demand corporate death of Tyson Foods (biggest polluter of water in USA)? Would you demand corporate death of American animal agriculture? I believe not. I mean, Brazil cuts 91% of Amazon rainforest just for the use of soybean and cattle production. This will have extreme long-term consequences. Animal agriculture causes 90%+ species extinction events. Overfishing disturbs the ecosystems so much that by 2048 oceans will be dead. Already, the ocean dead zones are caused mostly by animal agriculture drains. This is just some oil/industries that use oil shaky attitude. The biggest polluter of all is animal agriculture.

dmichulke 10y ago

I hope that your penalty also applies to other entities such as states. In this case please relate the say 1k deaths caused by Volskwagen to the number of people killed in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq, .. (you get the point) and multiply with approx 15 million $ per dead. Have the US transfer this amount (should be north of a trillion) to the victims or their representatives and serve justice!

SwellJoe 10y ago
Yeah, that's worth talking about. Probably not in this thread, though, as I think it's pretty far off-topic. But, I'd prefer talking about prevention of further harm, rather than just paying off the survivors.

jacquesm 10y ago

I don't think a corporate death penalty (revoking the company's license to operate) is the proper answer. Figuring out the actual damage done, a punitive fine with a multiplier on top of that, being forced to take back all products and significantly more incidences of managers going to jail would all be excellent things to try first. The problem is that the regular factory workers are the ones that would end up paying the bigger price in a corporate death penalty situation, and that companies trading abroad would be able to escape the penalty (in this case, for instance, the US could simply forbid VW to do business on their soil).

appleflaxen 10y ago

I agree with you, depending on the implementation. Many people replying seem to think you are advocating the execution of every man and woman who work for the company. I suspect that's not what you mean. But how do you execute the entity economically? To me, the right way to do it would be for the US government to take ownership of all the stock, and for the stock to be resold under a new corporate name. A criminal trial should then take place, with the C-suite officers and board of directors under scrutiny regarding their roles in the decisions, with clemency/immunity given to engineers and laborers for their full and complete testimony. The only way the behavior changes is if you sanction it with meaningful consequences.

SwellJoe 10y ago
All that sounds pretty good, to me. My words were probably poorly chosen; and it was a casual comment, intended to be taken casually, not as a call for a bloody revolution. I thought my disclaimer of being opposed to the actual death penalty for humans was sufficient to alleviate any fear that I actually ever want anyone killed, but the angry response seems to indicate otherwise.

dionidium 10y ago

The way to solve the problems that arise from the fact that organizations are not people isn't to treat them even more like people. You can't punish an abstract group. The others here are right: it would have enormous negative consequences. But that's beside the point. It wouldn't even do what you think it would do. There is nothing to punish. You're swinging your fists at a ghost.