who_would_fardels_bear,
Quote:
“There is not a particle small enough from which to craft a violin that would be appropriate for the loss of Arthur Anderson jobs.
They were corrupt.
They deserved to go down.”
Janitors? Typists? Mail-room clerks? Programmer-trainees? Payroll clerks? etc?
And - even in regards to the accountants and systems-analysts - do you actually believe that they were guilty each, all, and everyone?
As stated in the article:
“And, that it is those kinds of people [regular employees and ordinary investors] - not greedy Plutocrats cackling over piles of ill-gotten lucre - who stand to lose out most substantially when a company goes down”
Do you disagree with that last point, or do you believe that it is just fine for innocent people and the economy as a whole, to be trashed along with those who actually did the deeds?
Quote:
“Also, there is no inappropriate time for bringing legal actions against criminals.”
Agreed. The key word being “criminals.”
As stated in the article:
“individuals - large or small - who knowing or through criminal neglect, cause circumstances that endanger employees, contractors, end-users or consumers, or who cause financial lose due to intentional fraud or theft, should certainly face criminal charges and prosecution.”
When the company - as a whole - is prosecuted it is not JUST the criminals who are punished when/is guilt is determined.
The same response applies to your point as to the long-term economic benefits of “rooting out corruption.” I agree in principle, but if that is done without attention to just whom it is that is paying the price - doing so will have an effect on the economy similar to that which the tecnique of burning down one’s house to rid it of termites, has on one’s living conditions.
Or as expressed in the article:”
“...Given those facts - criminal prosecution of Corporations - qua corporations - as a means of helping the “little guy” - are as sensible as farmers eating their seed corn for a snack, or burning a season’s harvest in order to kill a normal infestation of some common pest. And, those points are particularly germane in times such as these.”
All the best and G-d Bless!
DiM1
As a "wage slave" I get certain benefits that the self-employed do not such as generally better and cheaper health plans, access to more capital equipment such as better and faster PC's, better office equipment, better working conditions.
When I worked for small companies I noticed that the computers were old and slow. The offices were usually cramped, and the health benefit choices, 401K choices, etc. were all worse than what I enjoy now.
A couple of the companies I worked for ultimately went out of business through no major fault of my own. I may have contributed a bit by not working that extra hour a night, etc. but usually it was business conditions and poor management decisions that doomed us.
In those cases many innocent people lost their jobs and their lives were thrown into a tizzy. Some were able to find work relatively quickly in the same city while others had to move, or had to move in with their parents, etc.
Not fun. But then again while they were working for the corporation they were doing much better than the average worker.
However corporations fail, whether by market conditions, poor management decisions, criminal behavior, etc. it is always going to redound to everyone that works there. That's just part of the tradeoff.
It would be best if the guilty individuals could be identified and punished singly. Corporate laws and legal precedents, however, make it difficult to completely separate the guilty from all of their innocent coworkers.
This is especially true if the guilty ones run the corporation and start using the corporation and its assets to put up a defense. The harder they work to prove their own innocence, the more complicit they make the rest of the company when they finally go down.