Not sure why this is downvoted. Shuffling assets and liabilities to protect from bankruptcy proceedings is a common crime and happens every day to companies large and small. The veil can be pierced if it can be established that key people were aware of the situation. Unfortunately it just means this process will be dragged on for years and it is unlikely to recover much from the Sacklers
sorry have non-managing owners ever been targeted for crimes committed by their PtLds? nope they have not. and how about "personal business", yes, they are always targeted.
this is a big differences... I think tomp is explaining this difference somewhere in this thread.
>(Under capitalism) many costs of having PtLds are externalized.
I'd wager that at a societal level we roughly break even +/- a little bit in either direction. For every mega-corp abusing their legal status there's a few thousand small and medium businesses that do not have to worry (as much) about being sued into oblivion by some ambulance chaser over something that is not the result of malice. (I'm speaking about various private liability limiting corporate structures in general here.)
So you think the climate going to shits is "roughly break even". Some have benefitted a lot from externalized costs wrt climate impact (made billions). And some have benefitted a little (fast transport modes becoming afordable for personal enjoyment).
is that inherent? i haven't read Capital, but this doesn't seem so much of an inherent problem with capitalism than it seems like a very dumb implementation liability protection.
what capital says is that under capitalism, the ruling class will continually set up dumb rules, such as this one, in their favor, and they have a structural advantage in doing so, so are increasingly successful at it until it provokes revolt.
They'll do that under any system (you can find examples in basically all of recorded history). The people on top always try to use their power to put in rules to stay on top. I'm not convinced they somehow do it more or are more capable of doing it under capitalism than they were under the 18th century monarchies or socialism of the USSR and its satellite states or any of the other societal structures that have come and gone.
you're right that they will do it under any system of class society, with a minority expropriating class and a majority producing class, such as have existed since the invention of written history. that's why marx called for abolishing classes, absorbing everyone into the working class, replacing the structure with an egalitarian, democratic structure to decide how to invest all resources, as the only way out.
russia didn't have the economic basis to get rid of basic material scarcity in 1917, and also was constantly under attack by capitalism, and so it devolved into an undemocratic mess until it reverted (now everything is even worse there).
Sure, this would also have been true under feudalism.
The important thing to recognize is that the ruling class - whoever owns property and is able to use that to exploit workers - will control the government and make laws that benefit them.
It's a feature when it's good faith efforts. It's very clearly a bug when it's used to evade no end of abuse, illegality and fraud, or to avoid paying the pollution cleanup.
There probably needs to be some exceptional way in law to pierce the shell of limited liability and go after officers, perhaps even claw back from investors and shareholders.
Limited liability only protects the capital of the shareholders, it doesn't protect the management of the company against criminal prosecution.
(In practice, however, managers are only rarely put in jail, both because it's notoriously difficult to prove white-collar crime (except in few cases, like insider trading, which are the pursued with extra vigor), and because CEOs are generally rich and well connected... but the problem there is corruption, not some inherent feature/bug of the idea of limited liability company.)
i suggest that, when a PtLd or publicly traded company gets under criminal investigation, that all trade in shares gets suspended. when a fine/settlement is determined the trade is resumed but the fine is --for the part that cannot be paid in cash-- paid in equity while considering an adjusted valuation (post fine) of the company. This means the shareholders dilute to pay the fine/settlement.
1) the fine needs to be fair to the society (often we see these "slap on the wrist" fines for big corps, that's just disgusting and shows how much our democracies are disfunctional)
2) i suggest this because i want the shareholders to be pushing their companies to ethical behavior.
3) it is very important that companies are also held liable for unethical behavior in other countries, and/or even for unethical behavior of subsidiaries (the foxcons and the likes).
The company is going bankrupt, so the effective "fine" to the shareholders is 100% of their equity. That's the point - "limited liability" just means it can't be more than 100% of equity.
This is why that arguments holds out! They do not have duty to anyone else because of this. And I'm okay with that as long as the stockholders are punished (no silly slap on the wrist style punishments) for crimes of their PtLds, as then the owners will force toe PtLds to have serious ethical standards.
I'm suggesting we launch a mental warfare campaign on the guilty.
The system is bought by folks like these. If you think the system will punish them, then I suggest taking a look at precedence for folks like them. It's not in the favor of the general public.