The basic premise seems simple and not-wrong enough: External costs are not borne by shareholders, so they are not priced into the market. I mean, that's kind

The basic premise seems simple and not-wrong enough: External costs are not borne by shareholders, so they are not priced into the market. I mean, that's kind of the definition of externality. Everything else is hot garbage, though. I don't understand why the shareholders are being dragged into this at all... Suddenly making millions of people partially liable for the acts of the company would result in nothing other than panicked crashes. Not to mention things like index funds suddenly becoming untenable -- imagine liability to the entire stock market?! And that to me is enough to confirm that this is barking up the wrong tree, because index funds are one of the best things to happen to the investment market for the average person. The answer is to internalize the costs to the corporation, so that the market can properly reflect them just like every other cost. This works fine, and doesn't destroy the very nature of the market or shareholding. EDIT: I mean this broadly. Not just carbon taxes and other classic examples of externalities. But also things like proper fines against damages discovered in court. Currently fines seem flatter than they should be. They're often enough to completely shutter a small company, but when scaled up often don't even negate the potential profits for megacorps.