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One of the fascinating aspects that allows this to continue is that legal liability for a destructive product is essentially voided when a company is sold (look

One of the fascinating aspects that allows this to continue is that legal liability for a destructive product is essentially voided when a company is sold (look at the arguments Dow chemical made in Bhopal). This has created a system where nations effectively allow corporate actors to transfer the harm they cause onto the government and also let's companies skimp on doing effective due diligence when seeking a merger. It's an extremely fascinating case of regulatory capture, and I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities.

jvans 4y ago
> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities Yup, it is astounding how much harm a handful of greedy people can do without ever being held financially or criminally accountable. As long as the harm is sufficiently spread out and stochastic they are in the clear
random314 4y ago
> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities. The untold secret is Governments were built for supporting corporations, not citizens. So this is by design.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities. Future historians will understand, I suspect, as do many modern ones (and political scientists, etc.) that governments are creations of the ruling classes to potect their interests, and corporations (in turn, a creation of governments) serve to advance that purpose, and it is by choice and design (both immediate and structural), not incompetence, that governments do not constrain them in their pursuit of that goal, even when they try to convince the non-ruling classes that they are attempting to do so.
leoh 4y ago
What do you think are the best ways for a government to deal with corporations?
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  "Sins of the father are sins of the son", basically if you buy a company who did some super sketchy human life harming activity, you are now 100% responsible for that activity. This would also have the interesting knock on effect of promoting many small/medium sized companies, because you never really know when a mega corp with a massive history is gonna get held liable for something.

jvans 4y ago

> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities Yup, it is astounding how much harm a handful of greedy people can do without ever being held financially or criminally accountable. As long as the harm is sufficiently spread out and stochastic they are in the clear

random314 4y ago

> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities. The untold secret is Governments were built for supporting corporations, not citizens. So this is by design.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> I hope future alien historians laugh at how wildly incompetent our governments were at dealing with corporate entities. Future historians will understand, I suspect, as do many modern ones (and political scientists, etc.) that governments are creations of the ruling classes to potect their interests, and corporations (in turn, a creation of governments) serve to advance that purpose, and it is by choice and design (both immediate and structural), not incompetence, that governments do not constrain them in their pursuit of that goal, even when they try to convince the non-ruling classes that they are attempting to do so.

leoh 4y ago

What do you think are the best ways for a government to deal with corporations?

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
"Sins of the father are sins of the son", basically if you buy a company who did some super sketchy human life harming activity, you are now 100% responsible for that activity. This would also have the interesting knock on effect of promoting many small/medium sized companies, because you never really know when a mega corp with a massive history is gonna get held liable for something.