Redemption 2 - Electric Boogaloo, Or, On Corporations and groups

[Junkenstein]

The redemption thread made me start thinking about the concept as applied to groups. This is pretty broad and can include: Governments, Corporations, Charities, faith groups, you get the idea I hope.

All entities like this are, and frequently have done some horrific shit. It's not a challenge to name any number of examples. What I am considering here is how these often faceless things can earn redemption in the eyes of society.

You could say that in capitalist culture, any "group" still "trading" (Churches peddle their wares just as much, though not as efficiently as, say, Pepsi) has no need or desire for redemption. If the profit margins (Note, all of these things rely on consistent profit.) are constant or rising, this would indicate that their actions are viewed as acceptable for the majority of the public. Any positive actions by them must then be viewed as suspect as it would point to desire for increased profit.

Most of these groups have a hierarchy within them that would indicate those closer to the top are more responsible for any actions taken by the group. Here we may encounter individuals seeking redemption, but it is much more common to stick with the group. Pack mentality, it's core to the Police, Military, Wall Street, The Vatican and many more. It's them against US. This helps me see why there is so much attention when a member breaks ranks and denounces the group.

So how do you go about redeeming groups exhibiting societally perceived negative behaviours? I'd suggest 3 main methods are used: Regulation, De-regulation and self-regulation.

Regulation is almost always touted as being "bad" for the group. It will hurt it and therefore you in some way. So don't do it.

De-Regulation is "good" and opens up opportunities to be exploited. Many people have become very, very wealthy from de-regulation (And the other 2, but especially this one)

Self regulation lets all the groups kind of like you create your rules. Corruption all the way down.

With all 3 avenues leading to much the same place, i.e - The group continues as it was, it seems to place the responsibility on to society to correct negative behaviours. As noted, some boycotts and protests have had successes, though these are the exception more than the norm. How's Occupy doing? Yeah.

Maybe a page needs to be taken from FOX news. Sensationalise the shit out of every group fuck-up, no matter how minor or petty. Create a huge stinking target for worldwide disdain with every single slip. Embarrass the fucks into acting in a more socially responsible way. Treble all fines and use them to run adverts with the CEO's face crudely photo shopped onto faeces. At Prime-time. All year. With Full name, occupation and reason. After a year they go onto the reel that shows 24/7 on it's own channel. Or something. We need to be more creative than we are now.

What I'm getting at here, is that fines and jail are not enough for those who commit the greatest evils. I'm not saying gladiatorial arena, but I won't make a sad face if you do.

More seriously, measures need to be vastly more punitive and public.

Somewhat rambling, but I hope that's a starting point for something

[Left]

Regulation is almost always touted as being "bad" for the group. It will hurt it and therefore you in some way.

Wrong...in that it's what we are told, yeah. But the part I bolded?  That's the lie.
I agree that regulation can and does hurt companies...but companies are amoral hiveminds whose only goal is to survive and grow.
(Ants use chemical markers, our hiveminds use bits of paper or electronic methods of communication, but I digress)
As of right now humans exist to serve these hiveminds.
That's just asinine.  They should be made to serve the common interest, as they are both an entity, and a artefact of culture..

[Junkenstein]

Agreed, the bolded seems to be a fallacy that many slip into however so seemed worth noting.

Digress away, this whole thread is pretty much a spin off to try and keep a distinction between the individual and the group.

Common interest seems worth expanding on. It covers a range of social good and would seem to be an interesting way to punish groups. Westboro baptists or bankers doing mass community service has a certain something to it. I'd guess there to be a lot less ire at bailouts for banks if you saw the top 5% say of earners picking up litter every weekend for 5 years.

Part of the problem seems to be that it's pretty tricky to effectively punish a corporation. After a certain size, money and the law is little object or deterrent. You end up punishing parts that may not even be responsible (Or are being paid well by the corporation to take responsibility) and the machine rolls on. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, I'm pretty tired.

[Left]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

That's the problem with the corporate veil

You want to stop this shit, arrest the CEO and CFO.

[The Johnny]

A) Transparency

b) ACCOUNTABILITY

C) equal, non-selective Justice

That's the things we need.

Since we're on basic ethics, let's take another basic ethical principle.  It is impossible to have a good society if you do not punish and reward people for the forseeable consequences of their actions.

Let us take the most simple: in a war people die, they are injured, many rapes are committed.  Disease runs rampant, infrastructure is destroyed and people die to to the loss of that infrastructure, such as having sewage mixed in to their drinking water.  If we put sanctions on a country, people will die as a result of the lack of medicines, or food, or jobs.  Even without actual death, people will suffer who would not have suffered otherwise.

These consequences are forseeable.  When we implement the policy, we KNOW people will die. We are responsible for those deaths.  That does not meant that war is never the right thing to do, nor sanctions, but it does mean that the bar is high.  This is why the Allies hung Nazis at Nuremburg, because they started a war from which all the other deaths and rapes and hunger and so on flowed.  Those deaths, that suffering, was the foreseeable consequence of their actions.

The idea of forseeable consequences is fundamental to reasoning about ethics and morality.  It is especially important in reasoning about public policy.

It also applies to things like the subprime real-estate bubble, the use of derviatives, the piling on of leverage, the policies of neo-liberalizing money-flows first, trade second and immigration third.  All of these things have, and had, forseeable consequences.  People have died, lost their jobs, lost their houses, been beaten by their spouses, gone without meals, had their countries erupt in revolution because of the financial fraud and manipulation engaged in by bankers, brokers, central bankers and politicians in the run-up to the financial crisis on 2007/8.  The consequences were forseeable, they were forseen by many people (I did, and am on the record as having done so), and the actions taken by bankers and their compatriots were fraudulent on the face.

Entire countries have gone in to permanent depression as a result of the forseeable consequences of their actions.  Then various countries, especially in Europe, doubled down on austerity. Austerity has never worked to bring an economy out of a financial crisis or depression, and it never will.  It does not work, and this is well known.  Engaging in austerity has forseeable consequences of impoverishing the country, reducing the size of the middle class and grinding the poor even further into misery.  It also has the forseeable consequence of making it possible to privatize parts of the economy the oligarchs want to buy.

It is done, it has been done and it will be done because of those forseeable consequences.  They are all either desirable to your masters or, if not desirable, irrelevant compared to the advantages austerity offers them.

These are, if not criminal acts, then unjust and evil acts, done to enrich a few at the expense of the many, with disregard for the consequences to the many, including death, hunger and violence.

One of the reasons I write so little these days, is that there is so little point.  Basic ethical principles are routinely ignored even on the so-called left.  Basic principles of causation are ignored.  Basic economic reality is ignored.  And virtually everyone in the so-called democracies is scrambling to pretend that they have no responsibility for anything that has happened.

If someone does something with forseeable consequences they are responsible for those forseeable consequences.  Just because an act has bad forseeable consequences doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken, the alternatives may be worse, but whether the action should be taken or not, the decision has consequences.

I will, if I continue being irritated, deal at some point with the idea of alternate scenarios.  Too often we pretend that there are only two options, say "bailing out bankers" or "doing nothing" and ignore that there were other possibilities, like "forcing bondholders and shareholders to take their losses, nationalizing the banks and breaking them up."

As a society we have in the last few decades and are today making decisions with entirely forseeable consequences (as with climate change) that will kill a few hundred million people to well over a billion people.  We know it will happen, and we're doing it.

We are monsters.  And we tolerate monsters.  And we get worked up over exactly the wrong things, "ooh a single soldier was killed", rather than what is going to kill the children we care about, like global warming, or the people who have or will kill hundreds of thousands, like George W Bush, or Putin or people who are engaging in ongoing serial murdering like Barack Obama.  We ignore financial fraud, we ignore... well, why go on, the list is endless.

Forseeable consequences.  We're awash in them, and we don't care.

[Junkenstein]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

That's the problem with the corporate veil

You want to stop this shit, arrest the CEO and CFO.

Not far enough. Arrest and humiliate. Public fuck-ups deserve public scorn and ridicule.

Johnny, those 3 points are very valid. Introducing the first two will be a huge struggle though. Justice, well, Humans seem to be pretty good at retribution, but less so at actual justice. I doubt we're going to see an actually equal, non-selective justice system within a capitalist framework. Unless lawyers were somehow assigned blind and fees standardised, the wealthier will always exhibit privilege in a court environment. I'd like to hear more from you on this though, I may be looking at this too cynically.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

That's the problem with the corporate veil

You want to stop this shit, arrest the CEO and CFO.

Not far enough. Arrest and humiliate. Public fuck-ups deserve public scorn and ridicule.

Well, we should probably have a trial before we put them in the pillory.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

That's the problem with the corporate veil

You want to stop this shit, arrest the CEO and CFO.

Not far enough. Arrest and humiliate. Public fuck-ups deserve public scorn and ridicule.

Well, we should probably have a trial before we put them in the pillory.

Oh, you and your formalities! 

[Junkenstein]

Ah. Yes. Trial. Forgot about that. Kind of important step, but after it's taken then we go straight to humiliation.

Maybe not. The trial aspect kind of hinges of actual justice being delivered, which is unlikely when dealing with corporations. I should be more against show trials for CEO/CFO's but I can't object with any force. We have show trials for everyone, from hackers to genocidal loons. Why should a CEO get an easy ride? Because he's a fucking job creator?

I've got no answers here, just vague legally dubious suggestions.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

That's the problem with the corporate veil

You want to stop this shit, arrest the CEO and CFO.

Not far enough. Arrest and humiliate. Public fuck-ups deserve public scorn and ridicule.

Well, we should probably have a trial before we put them in the pillory.

Oh, you and your formalities! 

I am often called "hidebound", by people who desperately want me to understand that child molestors, for example, don't deserve a trial.

A trial, evidently, is a favor we give to criminals, rather than a process by which we can determine if the accused is actually guilty.  But apparently, if the accusation is dire enough, there's no need to go through all of that.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm sure getting over bronchitis will help my cogitation...
But what's good for company profits is often damaging to the society as a whole.
I mean...why does Houston have the MD Anderson Cancer Center?
...Because we also have the largest concentration of petrochemical facilities in the world, that's why.
Now what's interesting?  The EPA does fine the plants.
They don't fine them enough, though-it's cheaper to pay the fines and run dirty...and kill people.

We need to make penalties effective.  Laws that are enforced with a slap on the wrist aren't really laws, they just go into the cost of doing business oftentimes.

That's the problem with the corporate veil

You want to stop this shit, arrest the CEO and CFO.

Not far enough. Arrest and humiliate. Public fuck-ups deserve public scorn and ridicule.

Well, we should probably have a trial before we put them in the pillory.

Oh, you and your formalities! 

I am often called "hidebound", by people who desperately want me to understand that child molestors, for example, don't deserve a trial.

A trial, evidently, is a favor we give to criminals, rather than a process by which we can determine if the accused is actually guilty.  But apparently, if the accusation is dire enough, there's no need to go through all of that.

Yeah, I remember Khara arguing vehemently against the need to have trials for accused child molesters and rapists. She also wanted the death penalty for them, because apparently it was a better idea in her mind to occasionally lynch an innocent person than to have to wait a few years for someone to be proven guilty.

Because the more severe the crime, the less we care whether we get it right, apparently!

[Doktor Howl]

Yeah, I remember Khara arguing vehemently against the need to have trials for accused child molesters and rapists. She also wanted the death penalty for them, because apparently it was a better idea in her mind to occasionally lynch an innocent person than to have to wait a few years for someone to be proven guilty.

Because the more severe the crime, the less we care whether we get it right, apparently!

There's a certain kind of person who has to show HOW MUCH HE/SHE HATES <insert crime>.  And the best way to do THAT is to throw away the rule of law and tell them what.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, I remember Khara arguing vehemently against the need to have trials for accused child molesters and rapists. She also wanted the death penalty for them, because apparently it was a better idea in her mind to occasionally lynch an innocent person than to have to wait a few years for someone to be proven guilty.

Because the more severe the crime, the less we care whether we get it right, apparently!

There's a certain kind of person who has to show HOW MUCH HE/SHE HATES <insert crime>.  And the best way to do THAT is to throw away the rule of law and tell them what.

As long as SOMEONE hangs, it proves how against that crime we are.

[Doktor Howl]

Yeah, I remember Khara arguing vehemently against the need to have trials for accused child molesters and rapists. She also wanted the death penalty for them, because apparently it was a better idea in her mind to occasionally lynch an innocent person than to have to wait a few years for someone to be proven guilty.

Because the more severe the crime, the less we care whether we get it right, apparently!

There's a certain kind of person who has to show HOW MUCH HE/SHE HATES <insert crime>.  And the best way to do THAT is to throw away the rule of law and tell them what.

As long as SOMEONE hangs, it proves how against that crime we are.

We must have PUNISHMENT.  If we grab the wrong guy, there was still PUNISHMENT.