Recently I posted a piece about the psychological description of a corporation as found in the wonderful documentary The Corporation written by Joel Bakan.
"To more precisely assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."
My proposal would be a corporate "death penalty" for crimes committed on its behalf by the management. The severity of the corporate crimes would determine the sentence. If the corporate activity causes death to any living person, the death penalty would be applicable for the corporate franchise. Therefore, if a pharmaceutical company supressed any information about dangerous side effects of a drug, and anyone died from those side effects, the corporation would lose its franchise. This would similarly apply to companies creating environmental deaths such as toxic waste pollution. However, I would not allow insanity as a defense for corporations even though they exhibit psychopathic behavior. Furthermore, those corporations guilty of fraud would have a "three strikes and your out" rule to impose the corporate death penalty. However, my plan would impose the death penalty for any corporation that is directly responsible for the death of a living person.
I would not dissolve the business owned by the "deceased" corporation. That would penalize the innocent employees. What I would do is have the Government take over the ownership of these businesses. Many governments own businesses enterprises. Some airlines are owned by foreign countries and we all know that Dubai owns a port operations company. During the transition process while the Government owns the business enterprise formerly owned by the "deceased" corporation, new management would be appointed to run these businesses until the ethical issues of these businesses are resolved. When the company is running properly and ethically again, the Government can then auction the company to the highest bidder and use the proceeds to provide benefits to the victims of these corporate crimes.
I am a CPA and a venture capitalist so I am certainly an advocate of honest capitalism. And the government's ownership of these business enterprises would ownly be transisitional thus keeping the capitalist spirit alive. But, unless we control these corporate murderers and outlaws, there will be a continuation of death and destruction caused by the corporate criminal element. And that includes the "military industrial complex" that has been guilty of profiting from the deaths of millions.
It is amazing to me how willing the right wing is to impose the death penalty against individual crimes especially murder. We are the only "Western democracy" that still has the death penalty. But, when it comes to death caused by corporations and their management at levels well beyond the murder rates in this country, there is not a a single voice that calls for retribution for these corporate criminals. Unfortunatley, the right wing values money more than life itself and would never consider the "death penalty" plan for corporate murderers. These right wingers would justify corporate murders as collateral damage as they do when they justify war profiteering.
I realize that my proposal is rather extreme. And there is no chance that a corporate death penalty could be imposed in this global economy. But wouldn't it be a good idea to start with some regulation on corporate crimes and fraud and impose some penalty that at least would be a deterrant to such criminal behavior?
