> Would you, personally, accept punishment if (when) your government is found to have done something wrong? After all, you can vote.
That's fundamentally different. Everyone has to be citizen of some country or other, and it's difficult to change citizenships, but no one is forced to own stock in any particular company.
> And sure; but is it possible to determine when this incentive was created? If it is, can't it be stopped the moment it happens? If not, then the shareholders can't reasonably be blamed.
> Unless the shareholders are the incentive, in which case sure.
That example was meant as an illustration of using scapegoats to deflect consequences, and why the consequences have to bubble up beyond an individual doing a bad act on behalf of the corporation. I'm not sure what you mean by "the shareholders are the incentive."
My mental model for how this would work legally with shareholders would be modeled more on torts like negligence than on criminal law. So it wouldn't be necessary to determine exactly why the bad act was done to go after the shareholders, just that there was harm done on such-and-such date.
People are de-facto forced to hold stock in states that have no defined retirement benefit that can be lived off. The 401k in the USA is a good example.
I don’t think punishing stock holders makes any more sense than punishing all of Germany after WW1 did. You need to cut the head off the snake, not nibble at the tail. A hypothetical corporate death penalty should start at the top, then cascade down some amount of “tiers” down the executive chain. Executives tend to be the ones with the biggest stock rewards and the ones lining up unethical incentives in the first place.
The US has a defined benefit pension called Social Security. It is relatively generous compared to retirement pensions in other countries. A defined contribution plan like 401k is in addition to this pension; most developed countries also have something similar. In this regard there is nothing unique about the US.
> I don’t think punishing stock holders makes any more sense than punishing all of Germany after WW1 did.
Come on, stockholders are nothing like the subjects of a hereditary monarch.
> You need to cut the head off the snake, not nibble at the tail. A hypothetical corporate death penalty should start at the top, then cascade down some amount of “tiers” down the executive chain.
You need to do both: punish the owners and their agents.
What you're proposing is akin to punishing the generals and general staff, but letting the Kaiser get off scot free (including keeping his position).
That's fundamentally different. Everyone has to be citizen of some country or other, and it's difficult to change citizenships, but no one is forced to own stock in any particular company.
> And sure; but is it possible to determine when this incentive was created? If it is, can't it be stopped the moment it happens? If not, then the shareholders can't reasonably be blamed.
> Unless the shareholders are the incentive, in which case sure.
That example was meant as an illustration of using scapegoats to deflect consequences, and why the consequences have to bubble up beyond an individual doing a bad act on behalf of the corporation. I'm not sure what you mean by "the shareholders are the incentive."
My mental model for how this would work legally with shareholders would be modeled more on torts like negligence than on criminal law. So it wouldn't be necessary to determine exactly why the bad act was done to go after the shareholders, just that there was harm done on such-and-such date.