I think you’re misunderstanding my point. The reality is more complicated than that. There are some people who will be discouraged from committing a crime over

I think you’re misunderstanding my point. The reality is more complicated than that. There are some people who will be discouraged from committing a crime over threat of punishment. But many will not. Many people behave well because they’re just moral people, and others won’t because they’re just selfish and antisocial. Still others commit crimes out of desperation despite the risks. If the threat of imprisonment were effective, there would be no crime, because we already have prisons and penalties of punishment. But since we do have crime, it logically follows that it’s not effective. The other point here is that threat of punishment is not particularly effective as a management strategy in the private sector. It doesn’t incentivize behavior in the manner you might believe. Mostly it makes your reports dislike you and it makes them less productive. It’s a thing you learn pretty quickly as a manager. There’s a model of a person being a rational thinker, but in reality, people aren’t always rational. (Hell, adolescents are biologically programmed not to be rational and to stress test the limits of nature and society.) You find success in making less-than-rational people work together in harmony and achieve positive outcomes.