Wow! A whopping $11,000 fine for poisoning 300,000 people!

[tclambert]

27. Corporations were formed to avoid legal liability. The laws clearly protect them too much.

To be clear, the corporation protects the actual human persons responsible for harmful actions and decisions. The corporation faces fines and legal damages, but the CEO walks away unharmed.

In general, the question of failing businesses worries me. Many toxic waste sites were orphaned by businesses that went out of business. During their death spiral, they often try at some point to cut costs by dispensing with safety procedures, such as "temporarily" storing waste in steel drums on the back lot. They know it's not safe in the long term, but the plan is to take proper care of it AFTER the company's financial problems turn around. But if the business continues to flounder, conditions deteriorate, and they may take measures such as raiding the company's pension money. When upper management realizes they cannot save the company, they turn to saving themselves with golden parachutes, and big bonuses (for handling the stress of dealing with failure). When the company finally dies, the back lot is full of rusting barrels leaking toxic waste, the employees learn their pension money was stolen, and the C-level executives walk away rich.

Perhaps we need to re-visit the entire concept of the corporation. How did the world function before corporations existed? Did the people who ran businesses actually have to take responsibility and accountability for their actions? Maybe we should go back to that.