I would think that if there were a corporation engaging in practices that endangered and killed people that the law and courts, even under laissez-faire capitalism, could be arrested, tried, and convicted.
Yes, that's fine after the fact - after someone has been killed. Not before the fact - like setting safety standards and requirements that private corporate (and public) must follow to reduce the possibility that someone will be killed in the first place.
This is regulation - government intervention - that libertarian's oppose. The idea that a government entity - a central agency that itself spends billions on solely developing & revising safety standards each year - is a bad idea...but that profit motivation will lead private companies to develop better standards independently. I'd love to see the evidence.
Fact is, a company is a large association of people and it is remarkably easy to shift responsibility to other individuals when a profit-motivated decision leads to death, and the behavior never changes. Mainly because safety standards can be remarkably expensive, and so the decision amounts to spending millions of dollars vs. the chance of killing someone? Just one death is unacceptable, but business people are inherent gamblers and risk takers, so they do it again and again.
Yes, that's fine after the fact - after someone has been killed. Not before the fact - like setting safety standards and requirements that private corporate (and public) must follow to reduce the possibility that someone will be killed in the first place.
This is regulation - government intervention - that libertarian's oppose. The idea that a government entity - a central agency that itself spends billions on solely developing & revising safety standards each year - is a bad idea...but that profit motivation will lead private companies to develop better standards independently. I'd love to see the evidence.
Fact is, a company is a large association of people and it is remarkably easy to shift responsibility to other individuals when a profit-motivated decision leads to death, and the behavior never changes. Mainly because safety standards can be remarkably expensive, and so the decision amounts to spending millions of dollars vs. the chance of killing someone? Just one death is unacceptable, but business people are inherent gamblers and risk takers, so they do it again and again.
Ever hear of the Radium Girls?
http://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/