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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 20, 2024

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This would also provide bad incentives, because it would cap the risk of decisions with huge negative externalities. 10% of revenue times the probability of getting caught is basically nothing, so unless your action is going to cause a big enough stink to move Congress to act, you are in the clear.

As an analogy, suppose we capped the fines and damages for gross negligence of humans at 10% of their annual income. This would provide terrible incentives: people could speed by near kindergardens, throw empty glass bottles from skyscrapers, operate on patients while drunk and the like secure in the knowledge that the worst outcome will cost them no more than they spend on vacations.

Corporations already have huge advantages over natural humans through diffusion of responsibility and their liabilities being mostly limited to their assets (so the risk to their investors is limited). For Thalidomide, the corporate death penalty (i.e. bankrupting a company through fines and damages) seems like an appropriate outcome.

Of course, glyphosate is very far from Thalidomide, but caps on damages are not the answer.

In the case of thalidomide, Purdue, tobacco, perhaps even in this case, Congress could act - whether directly or under pressure from the states. I see the concern, but the inverse is equally ridiculous. Bayer has already lost $12bn+ from this despite zero real evidence, simply because they bought a company that made a product that people later decided might cause health problems.