Your premise is false.

At least it is, in the normal free-market systems that have swept the world (even communist bastions like Russia and China) due to their practical effectiveness at making societies wealthy at every level. Some people don't like that system because either they are very contrary people, or because they are not competent experts at macroeconomics. Misinformation, disinformation or denialism is the fuel such thinking runs on.

To start, you are equating things which are not equivalent: a deliberate, "malice aforethought" stealing from the till by a human employee, versus an earnest "expected to be able to do the right thing, but a genuinely unexpected business reversal or system glitch got in the way" problem. We'll revisit that difference.

But even more than that, wages are special. A wage isn't any random business debt; it is a priority debt that a business must pay ahead of other creditors. So the free-market systems actually do give great deference to a wage.

So in part, the premise of your question is propaganda: trying to curse the free-market system by painting a false social injustice.

Corporations don't commit crimes. People do.

Or... you can't throw a corporation in jail, and you wouldn't want to anyway.

A corporation an artificial "shell" or "shield" that allows the business to be treated as a separate "person for tax and CIVIL liability purposes. Read a book on starting your own corporation, and you will get a good briefing on the limitations of the "corporate veil". It doesn't work on crimes. Prosecutors ignore the "corporate veil" and arrest the humans.

So your premise that things go better for corporate criminals than for individual criminals is simply wrong. If anything, corporate criminals have greater exposure, because within a corporation, conspiracy has usually happened too, and that's a separate crime. The conspirators find themselves in the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and it becomes a footrace to see who rolls over first.

I'll grant you things seem to go lighter for those arrested for corporate crime... but that has nothing to do with favorable treatment and everything to do with a) the type of crimes people commit within corporations (vs. the type the common street thug commits); and b) the fact that corporate activities are usually done with the consultation of lawyers and CPAs, both pre-crime and post-crime. After all, consulting with CPAs and lawyers before you act, when you are uncertain about the legality of an action, is what the system wants you to do. So the system is reluctant to punish someone who did consult counsel, and whose counsel simply got it wrong.

The difference between your cases is intent, or mens rea

The keystone element of a crime is "mens rea", or "guilty mind". This is the intent to commit a crime.

When you, as an employee, steal from the till -- you know it is wrong, you have resolved to do it anyway, and you do it.

Whereas in the case of the wages, the company entered into the employment relationship with every legitimate intent to pay the offered wage. And something went wrong; the business suffered difficulties that were not reasonably expected; and they were unable to.

If that were not the case -- if the employer entered into the employment relationship with a "guilty mind", lying and never intending to pay a wage in the first place - then yes, that is fraud, and it has criminal consequences same as when you steal.

Your premise is false.

At least it is, in the normal free-market systems that have swept the world (even communist bastions like Russia and China) due to their practical effectiveness at making societies wealthy at every level. Some people don't like that system because either they are very contrary people, or because they are not competent experts at macroeconomics. Misinformation, disinformation or denialism is the fuel such thinking runs on.

To start, you are equating things which are not equivalent: a deliberate, "malice aforethought" stealing from the till by a human employee, versus an earnest "expected to be able to do the right thing, but a genuinely unexpected business reversal or system glitch got in the way" problem. We'll revisit that difference.

But even more than that, wages are special. A wage isn't any random business debt; it is a priority debt that a business must pay ahead of other creditors. So the free-market systems actually do give great deference to a wage.

So in part, the premise of your question is propaganda: trying to curse the free-market system by painting a false social injustice.

Corporations don't commit crimes. People do.

Or... you can't throw a corporation in jail, and you wouldn't want to anyway.

(You can bring criminal money fines down on its head, but that's about all that's possible).

A corporation an artificial "shell" or "shield" that allows the business to be treated as a separate "person for tax and CIVIL liability purposes. Read a book on starting your own corporation, and you will get a good briefing on the limitations of the "corporate veil". It doesn't work on crimes. Prosecutors ignore the "corporate veil" and arrest the humans.

So your premise that things go better for corporate criminals than for individual criminals is simply wrong. If anything, corporate criminals have greater exposure, because within a corporation, conspiracy has usually happened too, and that's a separate crime. The conspirators find themselves in the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and it becomes a footrace to see who rolls over first.

I'll grant you things seem to go lighter for those arrested for corporate crime... but that has nothing to do with favorable treatment and everything to do with a) the type of crimes people commit within corporations (vs. the type the common street thug commits); and b) the fact that corporate activities are usually done with the consultation of lawyers and CPAs, both pre-crime and post-crime. After all, consulting with CPAs and lawyers before you act, when you are uncertain about the legality of an action, is what the system wants you to do. So the system is reluctant to punish someone who did consult counsel, and whose counsel simply got it wrong.

The difference between your cases is intent, or mens rea

The keystone element of a crime is "mens rea", or "guilty mind". This is the intent to commit a crime.

When you, as an employee, steal from the till -- you know it is wrong, you have resolved to do it anyway, and you do it.

Whereas in the case of the wages, the company entered into the employment relationship with every legitimate intent to pay the offered wage. And something went wrong; the business suffered difficulties that were not reasonably expected; and they were unable to.

If that were not the case -- if the employer entered into the employment relationship with a "guilty mind", lying and never intending to pay a wage in the first place - then yes, that is fraud, and it has criminal consequences same as when you steal.

Your premise is false.

At least it is, in the normal free-market systems that have swept the world (even communist bastions like Russia and China) due to their practical effectiveness at making societies wealthy at every level. Some people don't like that system because either they are very contrary people, or because they are not competent experts at macroeconomics. Misinformation, disinformation or denialism is the fuel such thinking runs on.

To start, you are equating things which are not equivalent: a deliberate, "malice aforethought" stealing from the till by a human employee, versus an earnest "expected to be able to do the right thing, but a genuinely unexpected business reversal or system glitch got in the way" problem. We'll revisit that difference.

But even more than that, wages are special. A wage isn't any random business debt; it is a priority debt that a business must pay ahead of other creditors. So the free-market systems actually do give great deference to a wage.

So in part, the premise of your question is propaganda: trying to curse the free-market system by painting a false social injustice.

Corporations don't commit crimes. People do.

Or... you can't throw a corporation in jail, and you wouldn't want to anyway.

A corporation an artificial "shell" or "shield" that allows the business to be treated as a separate "person for tax and CIVIL liability purposes. Read a book on starting your own corporation, and you will get a good briefing on the limitations of the "corporate veil". It doesn't work on crimes. Prosecutors ignore the "corporate veil" and arrest the humans.

So your premise that things go better for corporate criminals than for individual criminals is simply wrong. If anything, corporate criminals have greater exposure, because within a corporation, conspiracy has usually happened too, and that's a separate crime. The conspirators find themselves in the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and it becomes a footrace to see who rolls over first.

I'll grant you things seem to go lighter for those arrested for corporate crime... but that has nothing to do with favorable treatment and everything to do with a) the type of crimes people commit within corporations (vs. the type the common street thug commits); and b) the fact that corporate activities are usually done with the consultation of lawyers and CPAs, both pre-crime and post-crime. After all, consulting with CPAs and lawyers before you act, when you are uncertain about the legality of an action, is what the system wants you to do. So the system is reluctant to punish someone who did consult counsel, and whose counsel simply got it wrong.

Your premise is false.

At least it is, in the normal free-market systems that have swept the world (even communist bastions like Russia and China) due to their practical effectiveness at making societies wealthy at every level. Some people don't like that system because either they are very contrary people, or because they are not competent experts at macroeconomics. Misinformation, disinformation or denialism is the fuel such thinking runs on.

To start, you are equating things which are not equivalent: a deliberate, "malice aforethought" stealing from the till by a human employee, versus an earnest "expected to be able to do the right thing, but a genuinely unexpected business reversal or system glitch got in the way" problem. We'll revisit that difference.

But even more than that, wages are special. A wage isn't any random business debt; it is a priority debt that a business must pay ahead of other creditors. So the free-market systems actually do give great deference to a wage.

So in part, the premise of your question is propaganda: trying to curse the free-market system by painting a false social injustice.

Corporations don't commit crimes. People do.

Or... you can't throw a corporation in jail, and you wouldn't want to anyway.

A corporation an artificial "shell" or "shield" that allows the business to be treated as a separate "person for tax and CIVIL liability purposes. Read a book on starting your own corporation, and you will get a good briefing on the limitations of the "corporate veil". It doesn't work on crimes. Prosecutors ignore the "corporate veil" and arrest the humans.

So your premise that things go better for corporate criminals than for individual criminals is simply wrong. If anything, corporate criminals have greater exposure, because within a corporation, conspiracy has usually happened too, and that's a separate crime. The conspirators find themselves in the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and it becomes a footrace to see who rolls over first.

I'll grant you things seem to go lighter for those arrested for corporate crime... but that has nothing to do with favorable treatment and everything to do with a) the type of crimes people commit within corporations (vs. the type the common street thug commits); and b) the fact that corporate activities are usually done with the consultation of lawyers and CPAs, both pre-crime and post-crime. After all, consulting with CPAs and lawyers before you act, when you are uncertain about the legality of an action, is what the system wants you to do. So the system is reluctant to punish someone who did consult counsel, and whose counsel simply got it wrong.

The difference between your cases is intent, or mens rea

The keystone element of a crime is "mens rea", or "guilty mind". This is the intent to commit a crime.

When you, as an employee, steal from the till -- you know it is wrong, you have resolved to do it anyway, and you do it.

Whereas in the case of the wages, the company entered into the employment relationship with every legitimate intent to pay the offered wage. And something went wrong; the business suffered difficulties that were not reasonably expected; and they were unable to.

If that were not the case -- if the employer entered into the employment relationship with a "guilty mind", lying and never intending to pay a wage in the first place - then yes, that is fraud, and it has criminal consequences same as when you steal.