Corporations who do it accidentally will end up paying for damages. If they don't, that's a failure of our criminal justice system, not the way corporations are formed.
Except that a) most of these cases are civil, not criminal (which, haha, is a crime in my opinion), and b) writing off tragedies of the commons as a "failure of our system" only serves to perpetuate this sort of behavior.
* most directors may be very amoral sorts only caring for the bottom line. That's fine.*
How is it acceptable to support or encouragement amoral behavior? That's a slippery slope. Today we're talking about whether or not it's acceptable to dump toxins, tomorrow we might be talking about whether or not it's ok for companies to foment a coup d'etat (oh wait, that's already happened, too).
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Let's be very clear: directors who release a toxin into the environment, if done purposely, will end up in jail.
I'm pretty sure no one from Sherwin-Williams ever went to jail over dumping toxins into the Cuyahoga River (http://www.wbez.org/frontandcenter/2011-06-22/anniversary-cu...)
Corporations who do it accidentally will end up paying for damages. If they don't, that's a failure of our criminal justice system, not the way corporations are formed.
Except that a) most of these cases are civil, not criminal (which, haha, is a crime in my opinion), and b) writing off tragedies of the commons as a "failure of our system" only serves to perpetuate this sort of behavior.
* most directors may be very amoral sorts only caring for the bottom line. That's fine.*
How is it acceptable to support or encouragement amoral behavior? That's a slippery slope. Today we're talking about whether or not it's acceptable to dump toxins, tomorrow we might be talking about whether or not it's ok for companies to foment a coup d'etat (oh wait, that's already happened, too).