Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:58:07.293Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Limits of Economism in Controlling Harmful Corporate Conduct

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Economism is seen as having a number of disadvantages compared with legalism as the preferred model for regulating hazardous industrial practices such as pollution. Economism forces public policy to react retrospectively to hazards when efforts could be made to prevent the hazard before it occurs. Economism engenders a moral relativism which weakens the moral force of law; it makes detection and deterrence more difficult than under legalism. The regulatory approaches of economism may involve reduced cost burdens on business but lesser predictability of those costs. Economism does not relieve business of the burdens of government inspections; it simply replaces technical inspectors with tax investigators because taxes on hazards can easily be evaded. Legalism, unlike economism, is not wedded to the assumption that business enterprises always behave rationally. In practical terms it is impossible to calculate economically optimal levels of taxes on social harm. Even if it were possible, the costs of making such calculations would be prohibitive. It is concluded that economistic strategies have quite limited, though important, roles in business regulation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Brent Fisse for critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References

ACKERMANN, Bruce A. and William T., HASSLER (1980) “Beyond the New Deal: Coal and the Clean Air Act,” 89 Yale Law Journal 1466.Google Scholar
ACKERMANN, Bruce A. and William T., HASSLER (1981) Clean Air, Dirty Coal. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ANDENAES, Johannes (1974) Punishment and Deterrence. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
ANDERSON, Frederick R., KNEESE, Allen V., REED, Phillip D., STEVENSON, Russell B. and Serge, TAYLOR (1977) Environmental Improvement Through Economic Incentives. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
ASHFORD, Nicholas A. (1976) Crisis in the Workplace: Occupational Disease and Injury: A Report to the Ford Foundation. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
BAUMOL, William J. and W.E., OATES (1971) “The Use of Standards and Prices for Protection of the Environment,” in Bohm, P. and Kneese, A.V. (eds.), The Economics of Environment. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
BEQUAI, August (1979) Organized Crime: The Fifth Estate. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
BERNSTEIN, Marver H. (1955) Regulating Business By Independent Commission. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BRAITHWAITE, John (1980) “Inegalitarian Consequences of Egalitarian Reforms to Control Corporate Crime,” 53 Temple Law Quarterly 1127.Google Scholar
BRAITHWAITE, John and Gilbert, GEIS (1982) “On Theory and Action for Corporate Crime Control,” Crime and Delinquency, in press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CARY, William L. (1967) Politics and the Regulatory Agencies. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
COFFEE, John Collins Jr. (1981) “No Soul to Damn: No Body to Kick': An Unscandalized Inquiry into the Problem of Corporate Punishment,” 79 Michigan Law Review 386.Google Scholar
DOWIE, Mark and Carolyn, MARSHALL (1980) “The Bendectin Cover-Up,” Mother Jones 43 (November).Google Scholar
DOWNS, Anthony (1967) Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GEIS, Gilbert (1973) “Victimization Patterns in White-Collar Crime,” in Drapkin, I. and Viano, E. (eds.) Victimology: A New Focus, Volume V. Exploiters and Exploited: The Dynamics of Victimization. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
GLASS, Adam W. (1980) “The EPA's Bubble Concept After Alabama Power,” 32 Stanford Law Review 943.Google Scholar
GREEN, Mark and Robert, MASSIE Jr. (1980) The Big Business Reader: Essays on Corporate America. New York: Pilgrim Press.Google Scholar
GRESSER, Julian (1975) “The Japanese Act for the Compensation of Pollution-Related Health Damage: An Introductory Assessment,” 5 Environmental Law Review 50229.Google Scholar
GUNNINGHAM, Neil (1976) Pollution, Social Interest and the Law. London: Martin Robertson.Google Scholar
IRWIN, William A. and Richard A., LIROFF (1974) Economic Disincentives for Pollution Control: Legal, Political and Administrative Dimensions, prepared for Environmental Protection Agency. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
JOHNSON, Ralph W. and Gardner M., BROWN Jr. (1976) Cleaning Up Europe's Waters: Economics, Management, and Policies. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
KNEESE, Allen V. and Charles L., SCHULTZE (1975) Pollution, Prices, and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
KRIEGLER, Roy J. (1980) Working for the Company. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MENDELOFF, John (1979) Regulating Safety: An Econometric and Political Analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Policy. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
MITNICK, Barry M. (1980) The Political Economy of Regulation: Creating, Designing, and Removing Regulatory Forms. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
PACKER, Herbert L. (1968) The Limits of the Criminal Sanction. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PAGE, Joseph A. and O'BRIEN, Mary-Win (1973) Bitter Wages: Ralph Nader's Study Group Report on Disease and Injury on the Job. New York: Grossman.Google Scholar
PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON COAL (1980) Staff Findings. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
RAAB, Selwyn (1980) “Ex-Owner Says Mob Took Over Chemicals Firm,” New York Times 24 (November).Google Scholar
REIMAN, Jeffrey H. (1979) The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
ROSE-ACKERMAN, Susan (1973) “Effluent Charges: A Critique,” 6 Canadian Journal of Economics 512.Google Scholar
ROSE-ACKERMAN, Susan (1977) “Market Models for Water Pollution Control: Their Strengths and Weaknesses,” 25 Public Policy 383.Google Scholar
SAND, Peter H. (1973) “The Socialist Response: Environmental Protection Law in the German Democratic Republic,” 3 Ecology Law Quarterly 451.Google Scholar
SCOTT, Rachel (1974) Muscle and Blood. New York: E.P. Dutton.Google Scholar
SETTLE, Russell (1974) “The Welfare Economics of Occupational Safety and Health Standards.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
STEWART, Richard B. (1981) “Regulation, Innovation, and Administrative Law: A Conceptual Framework,” 69 California Law Review 1256.Google Scholar
STONE, Christopher (1975) Where the Law Ends: The Social Control of Corporate Behavior. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
STONE, Christopher (1980) “The Place of Enterprise Liability in the Control of Corporate Conduct,” 90 Yale Law Journal 1.Google Scholar
SUTTON, Adam and Ron, WILD (1978) “Corporate Crime and Social Structure,” in Paul R., WILSON and John, BRAITHWAITE (eds.), Two Faces of Deviance: Crimes of the Powerless and Powerful. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
SUTTON, Adam and Ron, WILD (1979) “Companies, the Law and the Professions: A Sociological View of Australian Companies Legislation,” in Roman, TOMASIC (ed.), Legislation and Society in Australia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
SWARTZ, Joel (1975) “Silent Killers at Work,” 3 Crime and Social Justice 15.Google Scholar
SWIGERT, Victoria and Ronald A., FARRELL (1980) “Corporate Homicide: Definitional Processes in the Creation of Deviance,” 15 Law & Society Review 161.Google Scholar
TAX LAW REVIEW (1978) “Simplification Symposium,” 34 Tax Law Review 1.Google Scholar
TIETENBERG, Thomas (1974) “The Design of Property Rights for Air Pollution Control,” 22 Public Policy 275.Google Scholar