The corporation

[Comrade Anarchist]

corporations are under law a "person". so why cant corporations be charged with murder like a normal "person" for the millions of deaths they have caused instead of just being sued for mishaps.

[Agrippa]

"why not"

Because the bourgeoisie doesn't want to....

[Invariance]

In some jurisdictions, there exists the crime of industrial manslaughter where company officers can be charged and imprisoned. And if a director does kill someone, or order someone to be killed (or a host of other crimes), they cannot hide behind the 'corporate veil.' Moreover, action can be pursued under contract, tort or agency law. So, generally what you are saying is incorrect. If a corporation does murder someone, the directors can be held personally responsible and jailed. More often than not it is monetary compensation which is pursued, however.

[mikelepore]

Part of it is that conservatives sitting on juries usually won't convict, even in the rare cases when prosecutors do indict, and therefore there is even less chance that prosecutors will indict. Look at the Ford Pinto trial. It was proven in court, as solidly as anyone can ever prove anything, that the managers at Ford literally and knowingly gave the order to use a design for an exploding gasoline tank that they predicted would kill an estimated number of people. In 1978 the state of Indiana selected the cases of three women who were burned to death in their Pintos after rear end collisions, and indicted the corporation for "reckless homicide." A criminal trial, not a civil trial. The jury ruled that the company was not guilty because, since the rear end collisions were high speed collisions, the explosions might have occurred anyway even with a safer design of a gas tank. This, even though there was no dispute about the fact that the management clearly gave instructions to use a design that they expected to kill a projected number of people.

[teenagebricks]

If we punished corporations for their crimes the capitalist government would fall apart since the corporations are the very thing that props up the government. 90% of said corporations would be destroyed and the country would then be well on its way to anarchism. We can dream.

[Demogorgon]

They have legal personhood to allow them to function in litigation the same way as a person can, but that does not make them natural persons. Rights of real people have been extended to them as and when it suits the bourgeoisie, but the responsibilities that normally come with those rights tend not to be extended. Of course it is a bit difficult to prosecute a corporation with a crime as you would a person a you cannot send it to jail, but even at that they do get off lightly.

The real problem is the way, particularly in the United States, all sorts of rights are granted to them as if they were natural persons in a manner that actually tramples on the rights of real individuals. Personally I am waiting to see which corporation will be the first to bring suit demanding the right to vote of the grounds of personhood.

[Jack]

The goal of a corporation is to increase profit with little individual risk, you can't sue 10,000 stockholders.

[ZeroNowhere]

I'm not entirely sure that they can't.