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> A corporation is not required to kill for profit. Perhaps no, but a corporation has no compunctions about killing for profit. Let's take the direct approach,

> A corporation is not required to kill for profit. Perhaps no, but a corporation has no compunctions about killing for profit. Let's take the direct approach, and list some that will take money and a target list, and make those people dead for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_military_contractors#US_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_military_contr... Here's a list of companies in the USA who will sell you the tools you need to kill people at scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_defense_contractors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_defense_... But I think that's not exactly what we're talking about, we're talking more about how the corporate entity under this current system shields organizations of people from the deaths their decisions cause. GM knowingly let people die due to a defect in their vehicles that they were aware of: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-did-gm-take-so-long-to-respond-to-deadly-defect-corporate-culture-may-hold-answer/2014/03/30/5c366f6c-b691-11e3-b84e-897d3d12b816_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/why-did-gm-t... PG&E was found culpable for the pipeline rupture that killed 8 people and destroyed 38 homes in San Bruno in 2010, because they ignored inspection data. An article came out a few weeks ago about how immigrant child laborers are being killed in shocking volumes in American factories https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/12/immigrant-child-laborers-killed-factories-osha https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/12/i... Here's a fun that goes through a bit of the history of corporations killing people directly (murdering trade unionists) and indirectly (tobacco companies suppressing research). https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporations-profit-values-murder-culture-boeing https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporations-profit-values-murde... There's something uniquely devilish about the corporation in our current legal and economic system.

joelfried 3y ago
A corporation is a legal entity created on paper to allow people to do business more effectively. Corporations don't do anything, the people in them do. People working at GM didn't act to fix their vehicles and people died. People at PG&E chose not to perform actions based upon inspection data, and people died when their infrastructure failed. According to your Jacobin article, people at Coca Cola killed those trade unionists. How about let's not let the legal wrapper for people protect those who murder others?
- digging 3y ago
  "Prosecuting individual actors" and "treating corporations as hostile entities" are not mutually exclusive; indeed I'd say we should all strive to do both.
- camgunz 3y ago
  A major point of establishing a corporation is the liability shield it grants. Sometimes it doesn't work (google piercing the corporate veil) but, the whole idea is to grant indemnity to people within a corporation for the corporation's actions.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  I agree, people within corporations need to be held responsible for their actions. But a big part of why that isn't happening is that when people kill people from behind the shield of a corporation, we can't even get people to agree that anything should be done about it, because "they were just following incentives". And any attempt to change the incentives is met with "but how can they do business if they're expected to comply with these onerous regulations" or "but that's socialism!". Instead, we're just supposed to trust that if it made money for a corporation it must have been good, because the invisible hand of the market would never allow it to be otherwise. Until we break the idea that corporations are good by default, it's going to be hard to persuade people that going after people within a corporation for their wrongdoing is a good idea.
  - joelfried 3y ago
    I agree and hope that by talking about it like this openly and publicly that maybe others who haven't learned this lesson can do so.
samatman 3y ago
This is exactly like saying "a country has no compunctions about genocide". Which country are we talking about?
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  Who cares? Talking about specific corporations/companies is just derailing the discussion. An effective, enforceable deterrent against countries from committing genocide should apply to all countries, and an effective, enforceable deterrent against companies murdering people should apply to all companies. It seems like you're trying to make the argument that some companies don't need a rule against murder because they wouldn't commit murder, but that's absurd. It isn't unfair to have a rule against murder apply to a company that wouldn't commit murder. That's just how rules work, and if you have to pretend you don't understand that, I start to think you're just grasping at straws to try to justify being against a rule against murder for companies. If you're generally against economic regulation for companies, you might correctly point out that companies committing murder is a pretty extreme example, and most regulations aren't against such extremes. But that's missing the point. The situation is that extreme; people within corporations are committing murders and the corporations are receiving, at best, slap on the wrist fines or civil settlements that only affect shareholders and rarely affect the decision-makers who committed murder. No matter how anti-regulation you are, surely we can agree that "we can't have a rule against murder" is too little regulation?
- komali2 3y ago
  Perhaps you're right! Many countries engage in genocide and war crimes. I think that that should also be punished.

joelfried 3y ago

A corporation is a legal entity created on paper to allow people to do business more effectively. Corporations don't do anything, the people in them do. People working at GM didn't act to fix their vehicles and people died. People at PG&E chose not to perform actions based upon inspection data, and people died when their infrastructure failed. According to your Jacobin article, people at Coca Cola killed those trade unionists. How about let's not let the legal wrapper for people protect those who murder others?

digging 3y ago
"Prosecuting individual actors" and "treating corporations as hostile entities" are not mutually exclusive; indeed I'd say we should all strive to do both.
camgunz 3y ago
A major point of establishing a corporation is the liability shield it grants. Sometimes it doesn't work (google piercing the corporate veil) but, the whole idea is to grant indemnity to people within a corporation for the corporation's actions.
kerkeslager 3y ago
I agree, people within corporations need to be held responsible for their actions. But a big part of why that isn't happening is that when people kill people from behind the shield of a corporation, we can't even get people to agree that anything should be done about it, because "they were just following incentives". And any attempt to change the incentives is met with "but how can they do business if they're expected to comply with these onerous regulations" or "but that's socialism!". Instead, we're just supposed to trust that if it made money for a corporation it must have been good, because the invisible hand of the market would never allow it to be otherwise. Until we break the idea that corporations are good by default, it's going to be hard to persuade people that going after people within a corporation for their wrongdoing is a good idea.
- joelfried 3y ago
  I agree and hope that by talking about it like this openly and publicly that maybe others who haven't learned this lesson can do so.

samatman 3y ago

This is exactly like saying "a country has no compunctions about genocide". Which country are we talking about?

kerkeslager 3y ago
Who cares? Talking about specific corporations/companies is just derailing the discussion. An effective, enforceable deterrent against countries from committing genocide should apply to all countries, and an effective, enforceable deterrent against companies murdering people should apply to all companies. It seems like you're trying to make the argument that some companies don't need a rule against murder because they wouldn't commit murder, but that's absurd. It isn't unfair to have a rule against murder apply to a company that wouldn't commit murder. That's just how rules work, and if you have to pretend you don't understand that, I start to think you're just grasping at straws to try to justify being against a rule against murder for companies. If you're generally against economic regulation for companies, you might correctly point out that companies committing murder is a pretty extreme example, and most regulations aren't against such extremes. But that's missing the point. The situation is that extreme; people within corporations are committing murders and the corporations are receiving, at best, slap on the wrist fines or civil settlements that only affect shareholders and rarely affect the decision-makers who committed murder. No matter how anti-regulation you are, surely we can agree that "we can't have a rule against murder" is too little regulation?
komali2 3y ago
Perhaps you're right! Many countries engage in genocide and war crimes. I think that that should also be punished.