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 fr

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".