5 ms·

Because with large companies, blame and accountability gets spread thin over a wide area till it evaporates, so everyone gets away with it.

fanwood 1y ago
Not really, it's just that rich people are mostly above the law most of the time
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Rich people are above the law precisely because they use corporations and corporate laws as shields to deflect personal liability of their actions as a actions of "the company" which is a faceless entity. "You see, I didn't steal your money, the company I ran stole your money, but that's actually on you because you didn't read the fine print I put in the contract you signed. And don't worry, justice was served, the company got punished and is now insolvent. Now watch this drive *swings golf club*"
  - wat10000 1y ago
    It’s worse than that. Rich-people crimes are often codified as much less severe than regular-people crimes, or are just outright legal. This is a great example. Why is this emissions fakery illegal? Ultimately it’s because pollution kills people. Are these people going to prison for killing people? Not exactly. They’re going to prison for killing too many people. If they had stayed within the limits, they’d still be killing people, just not as many, and it would be 100% legal. Stab a person in the lungs, go to jail. Kill people by putting toxins into their lungs, well, just stay under this limit. Walk out the door with a $10 item you didn’t pay for, crime. Fail to pay your worker $1,000 that they earned, that’s a civil matter. Worst case you’ll have to pay a penalty.
    - lkbm 1y ago
      > Why is this emissions fakery illegal? Ultimately it’s because pollution kills people. Are these people going to prison for killing people? Not exactly. They’re going to prison for killing too many people. If they had stayed within the limits, they’d still be killing people, just not as many, and it would be 100% legal. Polluting is not a "rich person" crime. It's very much something normal/poor people do a lot, too. It's common for individuals to burn leaves. It's less common, but also an active problem, for them to burn piles of trash (including plastic, tires, etc.) As an individual, I'm allowed to do a certain amount of pollution (some because it's legal, some because it's unenforced), and will get fined if I do too much, same as the corporation.
      - wat10000 1y ago
        As an individual, at least you can make the argument that your activities result in far less than one death. What’s the appropriate punishment for one micromort? I don’t know the answer to that but it’s probably not too much. Large polluters don’t have that excuse. I recall that diesel hate alone resulted in dozens or hundreds of excess deaths. How many people do compliant cars kill? How many does a coal power plant kill? And all 100% legal.
  - lb1lf 1y ago
    “Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like.” Edward, Lord Thurlow c.1850
  - lurk2 1y ago
    > I didn't steal your money, the company I ran stole your money This isn’t how it works.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      This is exactly how it works. Liability spread out over even just 10 people is so much less risky than one person. A corporation can do pretty much anything. Steal, lie, poison communities, give people HIV. Anything.
      - lurk2 1y ago
        > This is exactly how it works. No, it isn’t. Limited liability does not shield executives from criminal prosecution. If an LLC defrauds another party, the perpetrators are both criminally and civilly liable; this is true in every common law country you can think of. Limited liability corporations enjoy a limitation of civil liability (i.e. the shareholders cannot be held liable for more than the company is worth). This limitation is not exhaustive in the case of fraud or criminal negligence. In practice it is of course possible that people “get away with” both, but that is a failing of law enforcement, not limited liability itself.
- anovikov 1y ago
  When it comes to criminal offences, they are pretty much within the law, well except they can afford better lawyers so usually get away with minimum legally possible punishment. Companies and the concept of limited liability exists to make innovation possible. No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. And, because majority of money businessmen make is the stock worth, company being insolvent and thus it's stock losing all value is in itself a punishment heavy enough for the founders.
  - nemonemo 1y ago
    We need to balance the benefit and the downside of the limited liability in corporations. If innovation no longer becomes beneficial for the society and only beneficial for a small number of people, perhaps the society may need to reconsider the concept.
  - lucianbr 1y ago
    > No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. What does that have to do with anything? We're not discussing a case of VW making bad business decisions and losing money. If you start a company and break the law and harm people, you should have your house confiscated and/or go to prison. If you can't take this responsibility, just don't start the startup, that's perfect. You are creating confusion about the subject being discussed in order to defend criminals.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      Yes that was a bad example. The "limited liability" concept applies to financial losses, not crimes.
  - thatguy0900 1y ago
    Why would you go to jail unless you're doing something illegal? Are you honestly saying startups should be legally exempt from pollution laws and allowed to cheat brazenly on commissions tests by public agencies? It's fair for rich people to just lose some income(and still be rich) for crimes while poor people have to go to jail is honestly a unhinged take
constantcrying 1y ago
In this case both the company and the responsible managers were held liable. Of course a lot of blame shifting was attempted, but clearly it did not result in no one being held responsible.
aeyes 1y ago
Ultimately the CEO is responsible. To me it doesn't even matter if the CEO knows about it or not, if not the company has poor governance which is the CEOs full responsibility. Wirecard CEO has been arrested since 2020, will probably sit for another 10 years.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  I believe "knew or should have known" is the legal statement. Ignorance (either deliberate or accidental) doesn't get you off the hook.
  - nthingtohide 1y ago
    Rhodesia solution is magnificient in this case. Sending A Letter To The PM | Yes Minister | BBC Comedy Greats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE6lpKkcFQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE6lpKkcFQY
  - brookst 1y ago
    But negligence is fundamentally different from mens rea. Fine to punish both but I am not a fan of justice intentionally ignoring context.
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      > But negligence is fundamentally different from mens rea It differs in that mens rea is the legal concept of a culpable state of mind, and negligence is one example. More fully, a crime is generally defined by a prohibited act (actua reus) and a wrongful state of mind (mens rea), though there are strict liability crimes with no mens rea required. For, say, murder (in common law, specific statutory schemes may diverge from this somewhat), the actus reus is homicide, and the mens rea is “malice aforethought”. While “malice aforethought” is sui generis and seen only in murder, the common kinds of mens rea used in defining crimes, in descending order of the severity with which they are usually treated, are intent, recklessness, and negligence. (The same mental states are relevant in tort liability, though strict liability in tort is more common, and the civil and criminal definitions of negligence, particularly, are somewhat different.)
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Someone floated on here that the punishment should be partial government ownership stakes instead of weak fines. It doesn't syphon off funds and risk damaging important national companies that are 'too big to punish'. Instead it dilutes shareholder value and DIRECTLY impacts the company owners. It also gives the government an inside place in the company which no company wants to deal with. If a company doesn't change ultimately the owners lose ownership.
- lucianbr 1y ago
  Proof that solutions exist, if we want them. Whatever the cause of the apparent impunity of large corporations and rich people, it is not a lack of workable solutions. See also fines proportional to income, which now exist in multiple countries.
- 7952 1y ago
  I wonder if you could require the company to licence all its IP for free within the country. So that the brand and designs could still exist.
- DocTomoe 1y ago
  VW already is owned by the German state of NRW (20% of the voting rights, 11.8% of the equity)
  - junga 1y ago
    Not exactly. Volkswagen headquarters are located in Wolfsburg which belongs to the German state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). NRW, or officially abbreviated NW, is the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen). Therefore it's Lower Saxony that owns some parts of Volkswagen.
  - rurban 1y ago
    VW is owned by the Porsche family. Audi also shortly owned it. Audi creates the engines for VW, because VW by itself can create nothing much by itself.
potato3732842 1y ago
Not just companies, nonprofits, religions, governments

fanwood 1y ago

Not really, it's just that rich people are mostly above the law most of the time

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
Rich people are above the law precisely because they use corporations and corporate laws as shields to deflect personal liability of their actions as a actions of "the company" which is a faceless entity. "You see, I didn't steal your money, the company I ran stole your money, but that's actually on you because you didn't read the fine print I put in the contract you signed. And don't worry, justice was served, the company got punished and is now insolvent. Now watch this drive *swings golf club*"
- wat10000 1y ago
  It’s worse than that. Rich-people crimes are often codified as much less severe than regular-people crimes, or are just outright legal. This is a great example. Why is this emissions fakery illegal? Ultimately it’s because pollution kills people. Are these people going to prison for killing people? Not exactly. They’re going to prison for killing too many people. If they had stayed within the limits, they’d still be killing people, just not as many, and it would be 100% legal. Stab a person in the lungs, go to jail. Kill people by putting toxins into their lungs, well, just stay under this limit. Walk out the door with a $10 item you didn’t pay for, crime. Fail to pay your worker $1,000 that they earned, that’s a civil matter. Worst case you’ll have to pay a penalty.
  - lkbm 1y ago
    > Why is this emissions fakery illegal? Ultimately it’s because pollution kills people. Are these people going to prison for killing people? Not exactly. They’re going to prison for killing too many people. If they had stayed within the limits, they’d still be killing people, just not as many, and it would be 100% legal. Polluting is not a "rich person" crime. It's very much something normal/poor people do a lot, too. It's common for individuals to burn leaves. It's less common, but also an active problem, for them to burn piles of trash (including plastic, tires, etc.) As an individual, I'm allowed to do a certain amount of pollution (some because it's legal, some because it's unenforced), and will get fined if I do too much, same as the corporation.
    - wat10000 1y ago
      As an individual, at least you can make the argument that your activities result in far less than one death. What’s the appropriate punishment for one micromort? I don’t know the answer to that but it’s probably not too much. Large polluters don’t have that excuse. I recall that diesel hate alone resulted in dozens or hundreds of excess deaths. How many people do compliant cars kill? How many does a coal power plant kill? And all 100% legal.
- lb1lf 1y ago
  “Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like.” Edward, Lord Thurlow c.1850
- lurk2 1y ago
  > I didn't steal your money, the company I ran stole your money This isn’t how it works.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    This is exactly how it works. Liability spread out over even just 10 people is so much less risky than one person. A corporation can do pretty much anything. Steal, lie, poison communities, give people HIV. Anything.
    - lurk2 1y ago
      > This is exactly how it works. No, it isn’t. Limited liability does not shield executives from criminal prosecution. If an LLC defrauds another party, the perpetrators are both criminally and civilly liable; this is true in every common law country you can think of. Limited liability corporations enjoy a limitation of civil liability (i.e. the shareholders cannot be held liable for more than the company is worth). This limitation is not exhaustive in the case of fraud or criminal negligence. In practice it is of course possible that people “get away with” both, but that is a failing of law enforcement, not limited liability itself.
anovikov 1y ago
When it comes to criminal offences, they are pretty much within the law, well except they can afford better lawyers so usually get away with minimum legally possible punishment. Companies and the concept of limited liability exists to make innovation possible. No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. And, because majority of money businessmen make is the stock worth, company being insolvent and thus it's stock losing all value is in itself a punishment heavy enough for the founders.
- nemonemo 1y ago
  We need to balance the benefit and the downside of the limited liability in corporations. If innovation no longer becomes beneficial for the society and only beneficial for a small number of people, perhaps the society may need to reconsider the concept.
- lucianbr 1y ago
  > No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. What does that have to do with anything? We're not discussing a case of VW making bad business decisions and losing money. If you start a company and break the law and harm people, you should have your house confiscated and/or go to prison. If you can't take this responsibility, just don't start the startup, that's perfect. You are creating confusion about the subject being discussed in order to defend criminals.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Yes that was a bad example. The "limited liability" concept applies to financial losses, not crimes.
- thatguy0900 1y ago
  Why would you go to jail unless you're doing something illegal? Are you honestly saying startups should be legally exempt from pollution laws and allowed to cheat brazenly on commissions tests by public agencies? It's fair for rich people to just lose some income(and still be rich) for crimes while poor people have to go to jail is honestly a unhinged take

constantcrying 1y ago

In this case both the company and the responsible managers were held liable. Of course a lot of blame shifting was attempted, but clearly it did not result in no one being held responsible.

aeyes 1y ago

Ultimately the CEO is responsible. To me it doesn't even matter if the CEO knows about it or not, if not the company has poor governance which is the CEOs full responsibility. Wirecard CEO has been arrested since 2020, will probably sit for another 10 years.

AnimalMuppet 1y ago
I believe "knew or should have known" is the legal statement. Ignorance (either deliberate or accidental) doesn't get you off the hook.
- nthingtohide 1y ago
  Rhodesia solution is magnificient in this case. Sending A Letter To The PM | Yes Minister | BBC Comedy Greats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE6lpKkcFQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE6lpKkcFQY
- brookst 1y ago
  But negligence is fundamentally different from mens rea. Fine to punish both but I am not a fan of justice intentionally ignoring context.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > But negligence is fundamentally different from mens rea It differs in that mens rea is the legal concept of a culpable state of mind, and negligence is one example. More fully, a crime is generally defined by a prohibited act (actua reus) and a wrongful state of mind (mens rea), though there are strict liability crimes with no mens rea required. For, say, murder (in common law, specific statutory schemes may diverge from this somewhat), the actus reus is homicide, and the mens rea is “malice aforethought”. While “malice aforethought” is sui generis and seen only in murder, the common kinds of mens rea used in defining crimes, in descending order of the severity with which they are usually treated, are intent, recklessness, and negligence. (The same mental states are relevant in tort liability, though strict liability in tort is more common, and the civil and criminal definitions of negligence, particularly, are somewhat different.)

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

Someone floated on here that the punishment should be partial government ownership stakes instead of weak fines. It doesn't syphon off funds and risk damaging important national companies that are 'too big to punish'. Instead it dilutes shareholder value and DIRECTLY impacts the company owners. It also gives the government an inside place in the company which no company wants to deal with. If a company doesn't change ultimately the owners lose ownership.

lucianbr 1y ago
Proof that solutions exist, if we want them. Whatever the cause of the apparent impunity of large corporations and rich people, it is not a lack of workable solutions. See also fines proportional to income, which now exist in multiple countries.
7952 1y ago
I wonder if you could require the company to licence all its IP for free within the country. So that the brand and designs could still exist.
DocTomoe 1y ago
VW already is owned by the German state of NRW (20% of the voting rights, 11.8% of the equity)
- junga 1y ago
  Not exactly. Volkswagen headquarters are located in Wolfsburg which belongs to the German state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). NRW, or officially abbreviated NW, is the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Nordrhein-Westfalen). Therefore it's Lower Saxony that owns some parts of Volkswagen.
- rurban 1y ago
  VW is owned by the Porsche family. Audi also shortly owned it. Audi creates the engines for VW, because VW by itself can create nothing much by itself.

potato3732842 1y ago

Not just companies, nonprofits, religions, governments