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If you can fairly and correctly evaluate which CEOs are especially blood sucking, simply taking their money and sending them to prison for a while will have the

If you can fairly and correctly evaluate which CEOs are especially blood sucking, simply taking their money and sending them to prison for a while will have the same effect and be far less ethically dubious. If the evaluation is flawed... do you see why it's not a good idea?

dredmorbius 2y ago
What US executives have been so prosecuted in recent memory? And specifically for abuses of the public, not of financial frauds affecting shareholders or lenders. Examples from the healthcare, banking, pharmaceutical (notably Purdue) or petrochemical industries might be particularly appropriate. My read of the street is that the institution of law and courts has been assessed as insufficient and/or terminally dysfunctional.
- aeonik 2y ago
  I thought of Martin Shkreli, but I think he might fall under your criteria of defrauding investors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    Good suggestion, but I think it's the investor, not public side, which pushed the needle there.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  I thought the original argument was that they should be prosecuted and condemned to death. And against this, I say if you are able to prosecute and condemn the right people, sending them to jail is enough to get a useful result. What's the view you're defending? That CEOs should be murdered when some arbitrary citizen ready to do murder thinks the CEO is guilty enough? I totally think law and order is dysfunctional. I don't know if people will actually resort to murder, but I could understand why they would do it. (It's far easier to talk about it than to do it.) But it is not a good solution to the problem. The system of "murder people when we are upset" will certainly be at least as dysfunctional as the current one, if not more. Law being taken into the hands of whoever has weapons and the will to do it is what happens in narco states. Who prefers that?
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    I was directly addressing your statement "simply taking their money and sending them to prison for a while will have the same effect", and asking for examples of where that's happened, again, specifically for abuses against the public at large rather than for investor or creditor classes for whom justice seems far more often and readily served. One would think that this is a target-rich environment, and yet there don't seem to be many cases of that occurring. You've not answered my own question (choosing to rather spectacularly misinterpret and misstate my comment instead). I've put the question (phrased several ways) to an LLM which first responded with a set of decades-old fraud (e.g., creditor/shareholder victims) cases, and then point blank refused to suggest who might be prosecuted, or even who has been discussed as being plausibly prosecuted (interesting set of guardrails). The law for whatever reasons --- I can think of several and there are many which have been expressed both recently and going back through time, Anatole France's observation of the law and its majestic equality would be among the classic and better known --- seems not to take an interest into affronts against the public at large. I think my point was clearly expressed as originally put, if you've any difficulties in interpreting this, please say how and where: My read of the street is that the institution of law and courts has been assessed as insufficient and/or terminally dysfunctional. The alternatives are not good, a point on which I suspect we're agreed. But they'll be reached for where institutions consistently fail, if I read history correctly. And to draw on another recent HN thread, if the purpose of a system is what it does, then the system isn't broken but is performing as intended. Which would itself be a problem. (See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42313947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42313947> among numerous others: <https://hn.algolia.com/?q=stafford%20beer https://hn.algolia.com/?q=stafford%20beer>.)
tivert 2y ago
>> And what about this? Imagine a world where the especially blood-sucking CEOs have a 1/10 chance of being assassinated. Don't you think that the regular expectation of this might make them a little less blood-sucking? > If you can fairly and correctly evaluate which CEOs are especially blood sucking, simply taking their money and sending them to prison for a while will have the same effect and be far less ethically dubious. But that would require the buy in and cooperation of the state, which probably wouldn't work any better than the current political/judicial system, because elites like CEOs have disproportionate influence in controlling state behavior. The system is setup to primarily protect and serve people like them. I think the GP's idea was to add an extra-judicial check on CEO behavior that could be implemented by a motivated individual, and thus would be much harder for CEOs to subvert. Even the threat of assassination could have a restraining effect, because who wants to live in a bunker surrounded by guards? The blood-sucking CEO wouldn't be able to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. One (somewhat small) problem with the GP's idea is its focus on CEOs. One feature of capitalism is how it can obscure culpability and create scapegoats to misdirect anger and protect the principles. A CEO definitely has fault and responsibility for the company's actions, but he's ultimately a minion of the company's owners. Above the CEO things often get shadowy.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  Motivated individuals will make for an even less fair system. Current CEOs and politicians and rich businessmen are by far the most motivated individuals, with lots of resources at their disposal. Courts and laws have become corrupted, but you tink letting people at random make their own justice will not be corrupted? One of the reasons this even sounds remotely possible to you is we have not abandoned the idea of the rule of law. If it were abandoned outright, the CEOs (or whatever) would never be outside of protected areas and without guards and such. Ordinary citizens however, would not afford protection.
wholinator2 2y ago
Oh of course! I'm sure everyone here would love if that was an option. My gosh if rich people were effectively punished for their crimes we'd be living in a completely different society right now! But they aren't, and so we have this
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  We still live in a society where the Democrat's second largest donor was thrown into jail for 25 years during a Democratic administration. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
If it were possible to easily do so in today's society, I would agree with you. The entire point is that it is not easy, especially since "taking their money and sending them to prison" often involves a sentence not commensurate with the crime, and ditto for the fine.
- mulmen 2y ago
  What is the crime? What law was broken?
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    My point exactly is not that a law was broken, but a crime was committed!
    - mulmen 2y ago
      A crime is an unlawful act. It’s not just whatever behavior you personally don’t like.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  How do you imagine murdering the guilty would be possible when sending them to jail is not? Do you think courts are corrupted, but if random people just took justice into their own hands that would work out to be fair and just? I know nothing, but reading the news "CEO assasinated" my first thought is he was murdered by a rival organisation. CEOs are not martians. They're some of "the people" we are talking about. They rose to the top through ruthlessness and disregard for laws and such. You think giving up on laws will make them less powerful?
techfeathers 2y ago
This seems to be part of the civilization / institution — chaos / individual retribution axis. I.e. yes, we absolutely should prosecute more white collar crime.
protocolture 2y ago
The problem with analyses like these is that every CEO is protected by state limitation of liability. These people are shielded from legalism. They can lose their business potentially but their personal status (other than that tied into equity in the business) is pretty much 100% shielded.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  That's definitely a problem. And the "let whoever is upset try to murder the respective CEO" analysis has no problems? I think it has more.
rozap 2y ago
Everyone reasonable agrees that this would certainly be a preferable alternative to vigilante justice. But it isn't happening and it won't happen.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
If we assume a fantastical world without political lobbying that’s only limited by the depths of one’s pockets then it makes sense to talk about prosecuting wealthy corporate executives. If we’re in a world with such lobbying... do you see why prosecution might fail despite its merits?
- lucianbr 2y ago
  I thought the point was to prosecute them and condemn them to death. Do you think random murder by whoever is upset enough will work out to be fair in the real world, not a fantastical one?
  - harimau777 2y ago
    Isn't that the whole point of the social contract? People agree not to take the law into their own hands in exchange for the guarantee that society will protect and benefit them. If society is failing to protect and benefit people then the social contract has already been broken. Stated another way, society's end of the social contract is to make sure that people generally aren't upset enough to commit murder.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    > I thought the point was to prosecute them > Imagine a world where the especially blood-sucking CEOs have a 1/10 chance of being assassinated. Assassination isn’t prosecution. My point is, it’s the fantastical world that actually prosecutes corporate managers for their criminal decisions. Shit, it’s the fantastical world that has American laws which make it illegal for UHC to have the business practice of denying claims by default unless/until they’re positively proven necessary beyond any sliver of doubt. I am not trying to say murder will work to correct corporate behavior, I’m saying that it’s the thing we can see actually happens as an attempt to correct the behavior. It’s not hard to find many examples in this thread of people who think corps get away with too much. That is how one can tell there is a lack of prosecution and/or protection laws. The real world has unfortunate circumstances that encourage this kind of crime because America does not have effective laws/enforcement which curtail the power of the corporations who write said laws. That’s the fantasy. We don’t live in a world where execs can be prosecuted for most of their anti-social decisions, let alone are. I never made a value call about what’s fair, I only pointed out that the idea of prosecution in this context is a fantasy.

dredmorbius 2y ago

What US executives have been so prosecuted in recent memory? And specifically for abuses of the public, not of financial frauds affecting shareholders or lenders. Examples from the healthcare, banking, pharmaceutical (notably Purdue) or petrochemical industries might be particularly appropriate. My read of the street is that the institution of law and courts has been assessed as insufficient and/or terminally dysfunctional.

aeonik 2y ago
I thought of Martin Shkreli, but I think he might fall under your criteria of defrauding investors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Good suggestion, but I think it's the investor, not public side, which pushed the needle there.
lucianbr 2y ago
I thought the original argument was that they should be prosecuted and condemned to death. And against this, I say if you are able to prosecute and condemn the right people, sending them to jail is enough to get a useful result. What's the view you're defending? That CEOs should be murdered when some arbitrary citizen ready to do murder thinks the CEO is guilty enough? I totally think law and order is dysfunctional. I don't know if people will actually resort to murder, but I could understand why they would do it. (It's far easier to talk about it than to do it.) But it is not a good solution to the problem. The system of "murder people when we are upset" will certainly be at least as dysfunctional as the current one, if not more. Law being taken into the hands of whoever has weapons and the will to do it is what happens in narco states. Who prefers that?
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  I was directly addressing your statement "simply taking their money and sending them to prison for a while will have the same effect", and asking for examples of where that's happened, again, specifically for abuses against the public at large rather than for investor or creditor classes for whom justice seems far more often and readily served. One would think that this is a target-rich environment, and yet there don't seem to be many cases of that occurring. You've not answered my own question (choosing to rather spectacularly misinterpret and misstate my comment instead). I've put the question (phrased several ways) to an LLM which first responded with a set of decades-old fraud (e.g., creditor/shareholder victims) cases, and then point blank refused to suggest who might be prosecuted, or even who has been discussed as being plausibly prosecuted (interesting set of guardrails). The law for whatever reasons --- I can think of several and there are many which have been expressed both recently and going back through time, Anatole France's observation of the law and its majestic equality would be among the classic and better known --- seems not to take an interest into affronts against the public at large. I think my point was clearly expressed as originally put, if you've any difficulties in interpreting this, please say how and where: My read of the street is that the institution of law and courts has been assessed as insufficient and/or terminally dysfunctional. The alternatives are not good, a point on which I suspect we're agreed. But they'll be reached for where institutions consistently fail, if I read history correctly. And to draw on another recent HN thread, if the purpose of a system is what it does, then the system isn't broken but is performing as intended. Which would itself be a problem. (See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42313947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42313947> among numerous others: <https://hn.algolia.com/?q=stafford%20beer https://hn.algolia.com/?q=stafford%20beer>.)

tivert 2y ago

>> And what about this? Imagine a world where the especially blood-sucking CEOs have a 1/10 chance of being assassinated. Don't you think that the regular expectation of this might make them a little less blood-sucking? > If you can fairly and correctly evaluate which CEOs are especially blood sucking, simply taking their money and sending them to prison for a while will have the same effect and be far less ethically dubious. But that would require the buy in and cooperation of the state, which probably wouldn't work any better than the current political/judicial system, because elites like CEOs have disproportionate influence in controlling state behavior. The system is setup to primarily protect and serve people like them. I think the GP's idea was to add an extra-judicial check on CEO behavior that could be implemented by a motivated individual, and thus would be much harder for CEOs to subvert. Even the threat of assassination could have a restraining effect, because who wants to live in a bunker surrounded by guards? The blood-sucking CEO wouldn't be able to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. One (somewhat small) problem with the GP's idea is its focus on CEOs. One feature of capitalism is how it can obscure culpability and create scapegoats to misdirect anger and protect the principles. A CEO definitely has fault and responsibility for the company's actions, but he's ultimately a minion of the company's owners. Above the CEO things often get shadowy.

lucianbr 2y ago
Motivated individuals will make for an even less fair system. Current CEOs and politicians and rich businessmen are by far the most motivated individuals, with lots of resources at their disposal. Courts and laws have become corrupted, but you tink letting people at random make their own justice will not be corrupted? One of the reasons this even sounds remotely possible to you is we have not abandoned the idea of the rule of law. If it were abandoned outright, the CEOs (or whatever) would never be outside of protected areas and without guards and such. Ordinary citizens however, would not afford protection.

wholinator2 2y ago

Oh of course! I'm sure everyone here would love if that was an option. My gosh if rich people were effectively punished for their crimes we'd be living in a completely different society right now! But they aren't, and so we have this

bryanlarsen 2y ago
We still live in a society where the Democrat's second largest donor was thrown into jail for 25 years during a Democratic administration. Perhaps the exception that proves the rule.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

If it were possible to easily do so in today's society, I would agree with you. The entire point is that it is not easy, especially since "taking their money and sending them to prison" often involves a sentence not commensurate with the crime, and ditto for the fine.

mulmen 2y ago
What is the crime? What law was broken?
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  My point exactly is not that a law was broken, but a crime was committed!
  - mulmen 2y ago
    A crime is an unlawful act. It’s not just whatever behavior you personally don’t like.
lucianbr 2y ago
How do you imagine murdering the guilty would be possible when sending them to jail is not? Do you think courts are corrupted, but if random people just took justice into their own hands that would work out to be fair and just? I know nothing, but reading the news "CEO assasinated" my first thought is he was murdered by a rival organisation. CEOs are not martians. They're some of "the people" we are talking about. They rose to the top through ruthlessness and disregard for laws and such. You think giving up on laws will make them less powerful?

techfeathers 2y ago

This seems to be part of the civilization / institution — chaos / individual retribution axis. I.e. yes, we absolutely should prosecute more white collar crime.

protocolture 2y ago

The problem with analyses like these is that every CEO is protected by state limitation of liability. These people are shielded from legalism. They can lose their business potentially but their personal status (other than that tied into equity in the business) is pretty much 100% shielded.

lucianbr 2y ago
That's definitely a problem. And the "let whoever is upset try to murder the respective CEO" analysis has no problems? I think it has more.

rozap 2y ago

Everyone reasonable agrees that this would certainly be a preferable alternative to vigilante justice. But it isn't happening and it won't happen.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago

If we assume a fantastical world without political lobbying that’s only limited by the depths of one’s pockets then it makes sense to talk about prosecuting wealthy corporate executives. If we’re in a world with such lobbying... do you see why prosecution might fail despite its merits?

lucianbr 2y ago
I thought the point was to prosecute them and condemn them to death. Do you think random murder by whoever is upset enough will work out to be fair in the real world, not a fantastical one?
- harimau777 2y ago
  Isn't that the whole point of the social contract? People agree not to take the law into their own hands in exchange for the guarantee that society will protect and benefit them. If society is failing to protect and benefit people then the social contract has already been broken. Stated another way, society's end of the social contract is to make sure that people generally aren't upset enough to commit murder.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  > I thought the point was to prosecute them > Imagine a world where the especially blood-sucking CEOs have a 1/10 chance of being assassinated. Assassination isn’t prosecution. My point is, it’s the fantastical world that actually prosecutes corporate managers for their criminal decisions. Shit, it’s the fantastical world that has American laws which make it illegal for UHC to have the business practice of denying claims by default unless/until they’re positively proven necessary beyond any sliver of doubt. I am not trying to say murder will work to correct corporate behavior, I’m saying that it’s the thing we can see actually happens as an attempt to correct the behavior. It’s not hard to find many examples in this thread of people who think corps get away with too much. That is how one can tell there is a lack of prosecution and/or protection laws. The real world has unfortunate circumstances that encourage this kind of crime because America does not have effective laws/enforcement which curtail the power of the corporations who write said laws. That’s the fantasy. We don’t live in a world where execs can be prosecuted for most of their anti-social decisions, let alone are. I never made a value call about what’s fair, I only pointed out that the idea of prosecution in this context is a fantasy.