Recently I watched a fictionalized miniseries on Netflix about the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, the largest industrial disaster in human history, which killed ~20,000 people and exposed another...
Recently I watched a fictionalized miniseries on Netflix about the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, the largest industrial disaster in human history, which killed ~20,000 people and exposed another ~700,000 to toxic methyl isocyanate gas. It kills violently and horribly. Apparently, Union Carbide had known about the dangers of their industrial processes but decided to put a major chemical plant in a populated area anyway. (They also made very little effort to maintain anything resembling proper safety standards at their plant.) The area has still not properly recovered.
Profit-driven corporations don't care about human lives and must be subjugated to far more intense regulation and public scrutiny than they currently are, including more robust audits and more certain punishments for knowingly violating safety laws, including criminal charges against individual executives. Only by legislatively forcing companies to act within safe boundaries can they be expected to behave in ways that do not kill people.
Absolutely. The west's current strategy of fines and lawsuits just introduces another number that can be factored into projected profit and loss. The humans making the decisions have no motivation...
Absolutely. The west's current strategy of fines and lawsuits just introduces another number that can be factored into projected profit and loss. The humans making the decisions have no motivation to make better ones.
Bhopal is not the only major worker-killing industrial disaster that Union Carbide is responsible for either. They are also behind the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster, which is the worst industrial...
Bhopal is not the only major worker-killing industrial disaster that Union Carbide is responsible for either. They are also behind the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster, which is the worst industrial accident in US history.
They are not only still around, they have since been purchased by Dow Chemical. Yet another evil company with a death count.
Not really. Depends what you mean by “really hard punishment.” Plenty of corporations have been tried in court and fined for breaking the law. Union Carbide had to pay $470 million in 1989 dollars...
Not really. Depends what you mean by “really hard punishment.” Plenty of corporations have been tried in court and fined for breaking the law. Union Carbide had to pay $470 million in 1989 dollars for its role in the disaster, though the government wanted more. There are usually caps on the amount a judge can force a company to pay in fines. The Indian government convicted the company’s CEO, but the US refused to extradite him.
The Justice Department has a list of the largest antitrust fines ever issued; these seem to be around $1 billion at most. The largest OSHA fine was against BP (for the oil spill in the aughts) for $81 million, although I think they had to pay several billion in other compensation. Various companies have been involved in settlements in the tens of billions. But they often continue to operate—they weren’t crippled by those fines or the scandals in general.
The problem with severe fines is that they don’t necessarily discourage bad behavior, even though they do help victims (sometimes). If corporations think they can get away with violating the law, they will, even if fines are theoretically possible. People who succeed in corporate hierarchies are almost universally full of hubris. More critical governmental responses would involve increasing oversight over corporate activities or putting a cap on profits—or even a partial or full nationalization of the business, if it is demonstrably prone to social harm when run for-profit—which is less of a punishment (and so maybe less satisfying to laypeople) but more of a structure to enforce good behavior. Criminal lawsuits against executives, either involving jail time, asset forfeiture, or a complete ban in industry work, consulting, and lobbying would be useful on the individual level in preventing problematic people from influencing other corporations; however I don’t think individual corporate punishments actually have to be extraordinarily severe, they just have to be certain to occur and also industry-relevant.
They also have to be accompanied by structural investigations. IMO if a corporation or set of corporations are repeatedly violating the law then there is some structural issue with that business or industry that requires legislation or some other governmental input to resolve. Punishment of specific companies is a reactive and insufficient mechanism because it does not address the root cause of corporate crime.
In the US, the closest comparison I can think of is the Reconstruction Acts after the civil war, which required states to draft new constitutions and I think ratify the 14th Amendment to be readmitted to the union. I don’t think corporate punishment is usually this involved—typically companies are just fined. Jusicial dissolution is possible but it’s rare In the US, and also isn’t necessarily productive.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall: https://archive.is/TYPnz (sorry for the delay, I didn't realize Time was even paywalled, since I have never encountered theirs)
For more reporting on the DuPont schenanigans, watch The Devil We Know on Netflix, and read the long form article Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Recently I watched a fictionalized miniseries on Netflix about the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, the largest industrial disaster in human history, which killed ~20,000 people and exposed another ~700,000 to toxic methyl isocyanate gas. It kills violently and horribly. Apparently, Union Carbide had known about the dangers of their industrial processes but decided to put a major chemical plant in a populated area anyway. (They also made very little effort to maintain anything resembling proper safety standards at their plant.) The area has still not properly recovered.
Profit-driven corporations don't care about human lives and must be subjugated to far more intense regulation and public scrutiny than they currently are, including more robust audits and more certain punishments for knowingly violating safety laws, including criminal charges against individual executives. Only by legislatively forcing companies to act within safe boundaries can they be expected to behave in ways that do not kill people.
Absolutely. The west's current strategy of fines and lawsuits just introduces another number that can be factored into projected profit and loss. The humans making the decisions have no motivation to make better ones.
Bhopal is not the only major worker-killing industrial disaster that Union Carbide is responsible for either. They are also behind the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster, which is the worst industrial accident in US history.
They are not only still around, they have since been purchased by Dow Chemical. Yet another evil company with a death count.
Do we know about any really hard punishment for such things on any corporation?
Not really. Depends what you mean by “really hard punishment.” Plenty of corporations have been tried in court and fined for breaking the law. Union Carbide had to pay $470 million in 1989 dollars for its role in the disaster, though the government wanted more. There are usually caps on the amount a judge can force a company to pay in fines. The Indian government convicted the company’s CEO, but the US refused to extradite him.
The Justice Department has a list of the largest antitrust fines ever issued; these seem to be around $1 billion at most. The largest OSHA fine was against BP (for the oil spill in the aughts) for $81 million, although I think they had to pay several billion in other compensation. Various companies have been involved in settlements in the tens of billions. But they often continue to operate—they weren’t crippled by those fines or the scandals in general.
The problem with severe fines is that they don’t necessarily discourage bad behavior, even though they do help victims (sometimes). If corporations think they can get away with violating the law, they will, even if fines are theoretically possible. People who succeed in corporate hierarchies are almost universally full of hubris. More critical governmental responses would involve increasing oversight over corporate activities or putting a cap on profits—or even a partial or full nationalization of the business, if it is demonstrably prone to social harm when run for-profit—which is less of a punishment (and so maybe less satisfying to laypeople) but more of a structure to enforce good behavior. Criminal lawsuits against executives, either involving jail time, asset forfeiture, or a complete ban in industry work, consulting, and lobbying would be useful on the individual level in preventing problematic people from influencing other corporations; however I don’t think individual corporate punishments actually have to be extraordinarily severe, they just have to be certain to occur and also industry-relevant.
They also have to be accompanied by structural investigations. IMO if a corporation or set of corporations are repeatedly violating the law then there is some structural issue with that business or industry that requires legislation or some other governmental input to resolve. Punishment of specific companies is a reactive and insufficient mechanism because it does not address the root cause of corporate crime.
In the US, the closest comparison I can think of is the Reconstruction Acts after the civil war, which required states to draft new constitutions and I think ratify the 14th Amendment to be readmitted to the union. I don’t think corporate punishment is usually this involved—typically companies are just fined. Jusicial dissolution is possible but it’s rare In the US, and also isn’t necessarily productive.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/TYPnz
(sorry for the delay, I didn't realize Time was even paywalled, since I have never encountered theirs)
For more reporting on the DuPont schenanigans, watch The Devil We Know on Netflix, and read the long form article Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia.