What to do with the Harmful Corporation?

Tombs, Steve (2016). What to do with the Harmful Corporation? Justice, Power and Resistance, 1 pp. 193–216.

Abstract

The central concern of this paper is how to respond to health and safety harms caused by corporations. I confine my considerations to health and safety harms, and focus on corporations, not individuals. Once one begins to try to identify ways of effectively ‘punishing’ the corporation, one is led to think about undermining the very basis of the corporation – that is, one is forced into envisioning real utopias. And it is an area in desperate need of ‘real utopian’ thinking, given the scale of harm at issue. The paper begins by indicating the scale and nature of this harm. Then, I critically discuss the use of the fine as the common response to corporate crime in this sphere, before going on to consider more effective responses to corporate crime and harms, and the extent to which they may further the task of abolishing the corporation.