Must-Read: Mark Kleiman: The Moral Universe of the Corporate Killers
Must-Read: I have long thought that both Forbes and the Wall Street Journal have in mind as their target audiences that small segment of the human race that actually enjoys being free-riders, rather than that much larger segment of the human race that wants to engage in win-win reciprocal gift-exchange as a mode of social interaction…
: The Moral Universe of the Corporate Killers: “Daniel Fisher… writes for Forbes… hates plaintiffs’ lawyers…
…his first reaction to the VW emissions-cheating scandal was to criticize–not VW–but a class-action law firm threatening to sue VW on behalf of consumers. His point is that the buyers… weren’t in any direct sense harmed by VW’s fraud…. Therefore, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are being silly again. Tort reform, tort reform, sis, boom, bah!… Of course an individual car buyer isn’t directly harmed by driving a car that pollutes a lot, unless that buyer is burdened with a conscience ….
VW managers [have] committed a rather horrible set of crimes…. Fisher offers an ignorant sneer about the health effects of what VW did: “The Volkswagen defeat software is hardly deadly, unless one thinks the marginal nitrogen oxide it allowed into the atmosphere was enough to kill innocent bystanders.” Well, actually, “deadly” is precisely the correct word. Increasing NOx increases particulate emissions, and particulates kill…. Somewhere between 50 and 150 deaths per year (times six years) seems like a good first approximation, well above any single mass-murder incident in the U.S. save 9/11…