ihcoyc@aye.net On Deodands

There really needs to be a way to execute a corporation for serious misdeeds such as murder by negligence. The problem is, how do you accomplish this?

It isn't going to get the job done to levy a huge fine against the corporation. The corporation will just have to sell assets to pay it off. Likewise, merely ordering its dissolution would achieve only the same thing, especially since the chief buyers of its assets would be the competitors, since they are likeliest to find them useful. This would only make corporate rivalries even nastier.

Why not declare the assets of a corporation to be deodands to be offered up as sacrifices? Under old rules of law, a horse or a wagon that had killed a man were to be put to death or destroyed, even as a felon was.

Imagine: all of the buildings of a convict corporation are to be dynamited, and the land thereafter must remain unused, the hollowed walls, rusted metal, and twisted steel towers becoming a byword for future generations. All of its data will not be sold off, whether to competitors or to interlopers; rather, the data will be burnt, made useless both to its former owners and to the competition. All of its physical assets, from heavy machinery to paper clips, will be put beyond use. The loss to the shareholders will be total. All of its published "intellectual property" will be released irrevocably to the public domain, and the rest will simply be erased.

No lesser sanction would be an adequate deterrent to criminous corporations, without creating perverse incentives and repercussions. And besides, it would be fun to watch it all burning.