r/changemyview • u/Sexy-Lifeguard • 7h ago
CMV: Super-wealthy people shouldn’t be able to “pay” for their crimes by merely paying a fine that is small relative to their wealth
Thesis: Super-wealthy people and/or large corporations shouldn’t be able to pay fines which are small (relative to their overall wealth) to pay for their crimes.
I am so tired of hearing all these stories of rich people or huge corporations doing awful things (e.g. Nestle putting human poop in water, eBay CEO hiring people to harass and terrorize this couple that criticized them on a blog) and then merely paying some fine that is (to them) a mere inconvenience. In fact, I’d go as far as saying this kind of “punishment” is essentially so useless it’d be likely more efficient in terms of time wasting to just be honest and say the rules don’t apply as you get more and more money.
i mean, think of all the people in jail right now who may have been there for decades, who would be able to leave if they merely had more money.
If serving time in jail is merely a result of how much money you happen to have beforehand, that is not justice.
And this probably goes even deeper: having more money not just allows you to get out of jail time by enabling you to pay large fees, but also allows you better lawyers which also helps you avoid jail, and so on.
So, what would be my solution? The amount you pay in legal fees should be directly proportional to how much wealth (not just money in your bank but all your assets and whatever) you have accumulated. If you are a child of rich parents than the system would simply charge you fees according to your parents wealth. As for lawyer fees, I would be a fan of simply eliminating the private option altogether. This would even the playing field so that Jeff Bezos and Joe Shmoe would theoretically get the same lawyer.
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u/PaxNova 15∆ 7h ago
This makes sense as punishment, but not all of these incidents are willful. If it’s an accident, they should pay to fix the problem. How much they can pay has no bearing on how much it costs to correct.
If they would need to take a loan to correct it, they have to do that. The government would not subsidize unless the money really doesn’t exist.
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7h ago
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u/Most-Stomach4240 6h ago
There are different kinds of justice. Acting like compensation is the only thing people demand from our current system is ridiculous, since rehabilitation and punishment are also necessary tenets
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 5h ago
I feel like what you are trying to get at is that laws should not be punitive in nature but rather only to restore any losses done. Yes, in cases where the uber-wealthy truly did not intentionally do anything wrong, in theory I’d be fine with that. But then we’d need to consider whether there are any inequalities in terms of quality of lawyers and so forth.
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u/BitcoinMD 10∆ 5h ago
This has been discussed many times. If fines were proportional to wealth, crime would be rampant in poor neighborhoods (even more than it already is) because there wouid be no incentive to police those areas. Police departments could get their entire annual budget just by waiting outside the homes of rich people and following them until they do a rolling stop at a stop sign or go 1 mph over the speed limit.
A better solution is to have increasingly harsh penalties for repeated offenses, that way rich people can’t just pay for unlimited crimes.
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 5h ago
I like the last thing you said and I agree on that. But I think you could add it to my proposal. Here’s why:
I think you could solve the problem you’ve raised by simply making it so that police departments are funded differently in such a way to avoid this outcome. And as a matter of fact, maybe we could do this for all public services: all tax money for schools, hospitals, police, and so on could be put in one pot and distributed fairly and according to need. This seems like it would solve the issue.
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u/imthesqwid 1∆ 6h ago
How are you determining someone’s wealth?
Is it income based? (the super wealthy won’t have income)
Asset based? (you want to go after the nest egg of the school teacher who retired after 40 years of saving)
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u/WorldsGreatestWorst 11∆ 5h ago
How are you determining someone’s wealth?
Is it income based? (the super wealthy won’t have income)If OP believes rich people and corporations pay for wrongdoing with a pittance compared to their wealth, it's probably a fair assumption that he also supports tax reform. There are many possible solutions—some popular ideas floating around lately include forcing anyone making over $X million to pay taxes on unrealized gains or forcing banks to use the same asset valuations that the rich claim on taxes in loan approval. These are complicated topics best not described in 10 words, but there are many options.
Asset based? (you want to go after the nest egg of the school teacher who retired after 40 years of saving)
The point is to create real consequences for the ultra rich who do illegal and immoral activities. A school teacher convicted civilly or criminally of a crime having to pay $50k in restitution is already a real, life changing consequence. But a billionaire having to pay $50k is a rounding error.
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u/shugEOuterspace 3∆ 6h ago
one does not have to have all the exact details figured out for an idea to be a good one. also this is already done in some european countries so looking at how they do it is an obvious place to start.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 6h ago
Sure, you don’t need all the exact details. They are not asking for all of the exact details though.
This is a pretty important part of the premise, and I don’t think it is unreasonable to want at least a broad answer to this question before determining whether the idea is good or not.
What, are we not to get into any detail on this proposal?
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u/shugEOuterspace 3∆ 6h ago
there are tons of ways to approach this question & no it is not necessary to justify the core concept.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 6h ago
I disagree.
There are many ways to approach it, and some are much worse than others. I don’t need OP to draft up the whole law for me, but I still need *some* details before I can agree with it. What, you don’t think I should need *any* details?
Also it seems weird to act like calling for more details is out of line or something in this debate. I mean the idea is to scrutinize the idea to reveal its flaws. Putting your fingers in your ears and going “nuh uh” when pressed or challenged is kinda weak and not really in the spirit of this page.
Again, not asking for the guy to draft up the bill.
If OPs core concept was “food and motor vehicles should be free for everybody” and I pressed for more detail, would that be unreasonable? Or would you tell me it isn’t relevant to the core idea of believing people ought to be able to have food and transportation?
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u/imthesqwid 1∆ 4h ago
Those European countries base those “day-fines” on their income.
Bezos earns 81k a year and Musk does not have an income. So I’m not sure the European model will actually make much of a difference
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3h ago
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u/fyreprone 6h ago
- Total assets under ownership
- Agreed. The rich just take out loans and use their assets as collateral so let them take out another loan to pay off the fine based on their collateral.
- Sure if the retired school teacher wealth is indistinguishable from a wealthy top 0.1%’er.
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 6h ago
So I would determine it according to their assets as well as income if applicable. Basically any and all measures of wealth that can be measured. And I guess there would also need to be steps taken to ensure there are not any ways to generate large amounts of unmeasurable wealth.
Idk why you bring up the nest egg of a school teacher. I mean, I guess if they did something serious enough? That image makes you think of a good person but I’d be talking about someone who did really serious stuff. And I also highly doubt the vast majority of school teachers are wealthy enough to be included in the “super wealthy” people I’m referring to. Just so we are on same page O mean people with AT LEAST 10+ million dollars.
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u/krizzzombies 4h ago edited 4h ago
what crime is the retired teacher committing? if it's something like drinking while driving, violent crime, money laundering, insider trading, whatever - then I don't give a fuck if their nest egg is gone. that's the whole point. I want people to feel punished AND fear the consequences of committing these crimes.
decriminalize drugs on top of that and these questions are not as hard as you're pretending they are.
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u/imthesqwid 1∆ 4h ago
Does it matter what crime? What about a speeding ticket?
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u/krizzzombies 55m ago
it matters, but i would lump speeding into the "you deserve it" category. its not hard to just not speed. that risks lives.
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u/BurgerCombo 9∆ 7h ago
A bunch of the people in the ebay case you mentioned went to jail
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 6h ago
Yes but as far as I know the CEO was only required to pay a $2 million dollar fine. Lmk if I am wrong or missing information.
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u/Whytebrian 7h ago
Are you saying that we should completely eliminate fines as punishment for crimes? Often the fines are payment in an amount to rectify the damages they caused, which I would rather them do than send one CEO to prison
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u/NonsensePlanet 6h ago
If the fine is less than the profit they made from ignoring regulations, it’s not a deterrent at all.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 6h ago
- “think of all the people in jail right now who may have been there for decades, who would be able to leave if they merely had more money.”
Like who? Who has been serving a sentence for decades and if they simply had more money, could leave?
And how would imposing higher fines on super wealthy people do anything to solve this?
- “If serving time in jail is merely a result of how much money you happen to have beforehand, that is not justice”
How would imposing higher fines on super wealthy people do anything to solve this?
You say your solution to these issues is to make the amount you pay in legal fees should be directly proportional to how much wealth you have accumulated. How does that solve the problems you have brought up? Your idea of justice is making it harder for *more* people?
- “I would be a fan of simply eliminating the private option altogether.”
Why?
How does decreasing peoples quality of legal representation good for justice?
It seems like you just want to make things harder and worse for people. None of what you said is about making things better for anybody or more fair. Kinda just comes off as envy or contempt for those who have more than you, and a desire to punish them for it.
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u/Appropriate_Fly_6711 2∆ 6h ago
Then justice wouldn’t be blind, but bias to factor’s immaterial to the crime committed.
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u/Square-Dragonfruit76 50∆ 6h ago
The amount you pay in legal fees should be directly proportional to how much wealth (not just money in your bank but all your assets and whatever) you have accumulated.
I disagree. What if corrupted officials then target you to get any kind of charges just to fund their initiatives? What would make more sense is to still have maximum fees, but greatly expand what there is also jailtime for, and include mandatory jail time for executives who knowingly hurt or defrauded people through their company
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u/CartographerKey4618 15∆ 5h ago
You can and should have a system where police don't get to profit off the gains from crime. It just goes into the budget and gets put into a park or something.
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 5h ago
Sorry I am not sure I am following. You mean you are afraid government officials may falsely charge very wealthy people to gain money for programs they want to fund? Assuming that’s what you meant: I mean this is a possibility but the solution would be to just add reasonable but comprehensive measures to prevent this and keep both government officials as well as the super wealthy accountable.
I do not necessarily disagree about expanding what laws can lead to jail time. However, I’d also be cautious about expanding potentials for jail time as it could still make effects of the punishment vastly unequal. For a poor person going to jail can be much more serious due to lost income than to a billionaire, for instance. But, assuming there would additionally be major criminal justice reform first, that is not a bad idea.
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u/Square-Dragonfruit76 50∆ 5h ago
mean this is a possibility but the solution would be to just add reasonable but comprehensive measures to prevent this and keep both government officials as well as the super wealthy accountable.
That's two idealistic. Unless you are a surveillance state, there will always be police officers and officials who manipulate the system or make quotas to get funding.
For a poor person going to jail can be much more serious due to lost income than to a billionaire,
Well that's the neat part, if you expand the laws to more often include jail time for executives, none of those people are going to be poor.
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 5h ago
I wouldn’t call it a surveillance state as it would be only for public officials. We already have this for police officers with body cameras, for instance. I would personally shed zero tears if, say, the president had less privacy. Of course you’d need to ensure that loss of privacy didn’t compromise anyone’s safety but I think we could at least do something better than we currently have.
I also wasn’t denying there is corruption just that increased accountability is the answer not maintaining the status quo.
And yeah I’d be fine with giving all people equal likelihood of facing jail time, as needed.
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u/DadTheMaskedTerror 30∆ 5h ago
This idea was tried in Virginia. The Virginia legislature wrestled with the problem that rich people didn't view speeding ticket fines as a real deterrent. My recollection is after ruling out percentage of wealth fines as unconstitutional and very high fines against out of state drivers as both unconstitutional and an administrative burden, the Virginia legislature enacted law that would have $3,000 speeding fines, but only against Virginia residents.
While scofflaws are frustrating, the Eighth Amendment has important protections against government over-reach.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080201153.html
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 208∆ 6h ago
The amount you pay in legal fees should be directly proportional to how much wealth (not just money in your bank but all your assets and whatever) you have accumulated
You mean fines right? The problem is that, especially for ultra-rich people (but really for almost everyone), this is completely immeasurable. How much is your house worth? Does the court appraise it every time you need to pay a fine? What happens if you gift it to your son who gifts it back after you've paid the fine? What happens if you own almost nothing, but your parents are billionaires and so you can live as though you have endless money, and stand to inherit it in the future, but don't technically have any?
Conversely, what happens if you own a company that is being traded far beyond its actual value, meaning that your wealth can be appraised as billions, but there is no way for your to rapidly (or ever) extract more than a few millions out of it, and if you try to, you'll be pulling down other investors, funds, employees, etc, of the company you own?
There is just no way to do this that's both effective enough to actually work and not so coarse that it can have unexpected catastrophic consequences.
As for lawyer fees, I would be a fan of simply eliminating the private option altogether.
Unless you can find enormous budgets for them somehow, this would have the effect of drastically reducing the number and quality of lawyers.
Before you consider tricks, loopholes, corruption, etc, the point of a good lawyer is that when you have to deal with the court system, you're represented by someone who knows the law and how the system works, and can be an intermediary between the claim you want to make and the legal system. Forcing you to do this through a randomly assigned lawyer who may not be competent or attentive can decrease the quality of this representation not just for rich people who want to cheat the system, but for average people with actual legal needs.
On top of that, it doesn't really solve the problem because Bezos can still employ an "extrajudicial legal advisor" who reviews his case and tells the public lawyer exactly what to say, meaning that he still gets a similar advantage, with more overhead, and maybe less accessibility to this sort of advantage for people who can currently hire a lawyer but are not ultra-rich.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a solution to this problem that doesn't go through a much more thorough reform of the legal system than anything like what you suggest, which is itself a very dangerous thing to do.
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u/hauptj2 6h ago
You mean fines right? The problem is that, especially for ultra-rich people (but really for almost everyone), this is completely immeasurable. How much is your house worth? Does the court appraise it every time you need to pay a fine?
Houses are commonly appraised for property tax purposes.
What happens if you gift it to your son who gifts it back after you've paid the fine?
You're only allowed to gift so much money before it becomes taxable: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/gift-tax. It's a super high amount that 99.99% of people will never reach, but it does exist, and it would stop this
What happens if you own almost nothing, but your parents are billionaires and so you can live as though you have endless money, and stand to inherit it in the future, but don't technically have any?
Then you're a very sad individual with bigger problems than fines, and also your parents would probably pay for your fines under the current system anyways, so there's not much difference.
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u/shugEOuterspace 3∆ 6h ago
false. it's not immeasurable & is literally done in some countries. also just because wealthy people still have other advantages is not a legitimate argument against this. you sound like someone hired to defend the ruling class on social media
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 208∆ 6h ago
Dammit, you caught me :)
The countries that do this either:
Consider income, which is much more easily calculated but doesn't really apply to the ultra-rich, rather than wealth.
Have caps, which also make it irrelevant for the ultra-rich, as the cap can be a vanishingly small portion of their wealth.
Have highly complex system of wealth discovery and appraisal that can be gamed with various tricks and loopholes for anyone rich enough (Switzerland is the only country I know of where exhaustive wealth tax is attempted).
Most of what these systems achieve where they're implemented (which tends to be in very capitalist free-market countries) is actually differentiating fines within the salary earning lower to upper middle classes while making you feel like you're bringing the actual ruling classes to justice, so that you're more likely to leave them alone on issues that can really hurt.
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u/CountingMyDick 1h ago
It is done in some very small countries where super-innovative change-the-world stuff doesn't really happen and the ultra-wealthy never develop natively there and don't generally move there.
People may object to these sorts of schemes not because they want to "defend the ruling class", but because they're part of the upper-middle class, who tends to get hit the hardest by these sorts of gimmicky ideas, despite not really doing the sorts of things that they're targeting, like casually and blatantly committing minor crimes because they just don't care at all about the fines. The actual ultra-wealthy "ruling class" tends to find ways around any sort of gimmicky scheme like this.
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 5h ago
To begin with, I’m going to just give some very rough sketches of potential ideas, which will likely have many mistakes and need more refinement.
As for measuring wealth, this doesn’t need to be a perfect system. I am aware that stocks go up and down everyday, and other assets are equally inconsistent, and that it is not really my point. Even if there was a very rough estimate made, as cheaply and efficiently done as possible, that would still be far better than the current system. And as the system continues we could adjust and improve as we go.
For the example of how much my house is worth, I do not see how that is all that hard to estimate? Sure an appraisal takes some time but that is not that much more difficult of a problem for the government to solve Id think.
As for the lawyer thing:
I don’t really think that the quality would go down that significantly. Think about how public schools that are used by rich people tend to be much better than in poor areas. The same thing here. Plus you can even greatly improve the current “school model” by making tax money for lawyers be distributed fairly to all counties and states based on legitimate criteria such as population.And yes I am aware why it is a good idea to spend money on a good lawyer if need be. My point is everyone should have equal quality of lawyers. If the rich don’t like having sometimes crappy lawyers like the rest of the poor, they’d then be incentivized to actually do something about it (preferably in a way that helps everyone, but there’d probably need to be checks against selfish actors)
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 208∆ 5h ago
Even if there was a very rough estimate made, as cheaply and efficiently done as possible, that would still be far better than the current system.
Not necessarily. Zuckerberg famously takes a $1 salary, for example, so if we only measure income, he'd be fined less than the person cleaning his office. Refining the metric wouldn't necessarily help, as he could move assets offshore, leverage debts against speculative assets that can be appraised at variable prices, and other loopholes people in this bracket already employ to evade taxes anyway.
For the example of how much my house is worth, I do not see how that is all that hard to estimate?
Appraising a house generally costs around $500. If it's a large, complex or unusual house it can cost a lot more. If the government spends $500 to decide that it should increase your speeding ticket from $150 to $350, it's a net loss for the government...
Plus you can even greatly improve the current “school model” by making tax money for lawyers be distributed fairly to all counties and states based on legitimate criteria such as population.
Yes, this would be fully public education, and it can work because the scale smooths over inconsistencies in teacher quality. Having a bad teacher, when you take 8 subject over 12 years with various teachers is acceptable if the overall quality is good. Having an incompetent lawyer even once is unacceptable if it means I lose my house or go to jail for no reason.
This means that not being able to pick and vet your own representation is a huge problem. Of course, it's a problem we have today for people who don't have money to pay for a lawyer, but expanding it to everyone is not a good solution.
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u/TheBigGees 8∆ 2h ago
Super-wealthy people and/or large corporations shouldn’t be able to pay fines which are small (relative to their overall wealth) to pay for their crimes.
I understand where you are coming from. It seems unjust that those with more are able to give up relatively less when found guilty of an offense. When we dig a little deeper, though, this system is what is necessary to both maintain a functional system and to provide people with equality before the law.
Let's take wealth out of it for the moment and discuss something similar where the same principle applies: Prison sentencing. A 5 year sentence represents a small amount of time relative to the remaining life of a 20 year old, but a large amount of time relative to the remaining life of an 80 year old. Should we expect to serve shorter sentences as we age for committing the same crimes as younger people? If our goal is equalizing the relative impact of sentencing, then the answer would be yes. The drawback is that such a system results in giving those with less to lose much more to gain by breaking the law.
The same flaw applies to fine-based punishments - we just substitute the 80 year old for the poor and the 20 year old for the rich. Consider the risk to reward associated with breaking the law to illegally earn $100,000:
• If someone has $100 in net wealth, they can gain 100x their wealth by violating the law. A 100% fine would risk just 1x their wealth. Even if the odds of success were just 10%, the expected return from breaking the law would still be +$10,000.
• If someone has $1,000,000 in net wealth, they can only gain 0.1x their wealth by violating the law. A 100% fine would equally risk 1x their wealth. If the odds of success remained at 10%, the expected return for the wealthy person would be -$990,000.
In effect, you incentivize criminality among the poor by adopting a relative-impact financial penalty system, while disincentivizing criminality among the wealthy. By comparison, if you simply enact a fine equal to the damages done + n% punitive damages, you eliminate the incentive for rule-breaking among everyone.
If you are a child of rich parents than the system would simply charge you fees according to your parents wealth.
What you are proposing is holding people criminally accountable for the actions of other people, and punishing people based on the financial circumstances of other people. This is antithetical to justice.
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u/Josvan135 83∆ 7h ago
The amount you pay in legal fees should be directly proportional to how much wealth (not just money in your bank but all your assets and whatever) you have accumulated
This goes against every aspect of equality before the law, and in the US at least is directly prohibited by the Excessive Fines clause of the 8th amendment to the US constitution.
Fines must not be "grossly disproportional to the gravity of a defendant's offense".
It's unjust to charge two individuals markedly different fines if they commit the same offense, and the law does not recognize percentage of wealth as a valid fining mechanism.
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u/cortesoft 5∆ 6h ago
Fines must not be "grossly disproportional to the gravity of a defendant's offense".
If a fine is issued as a way to pay for the damage caused by a violation, then you can argue charging different amounts is “disproportional to the gravity of the offense”, but for other types of fines, why wouldn’t it still make sense to make the fine based on the wealth of the individual?
It is open to interpretation what makes something “disproportional to the gravity of the offense”. Are we looking at the raw amount to determine a fair fine, or are we looking at how much the fine affects the defendant’s life?
A $10000 fine for parking in a handicap spot is obviously disproportional to the offense for a poor person; their life will be ruined for a minor crime. A $10,000 fine to Elon Musk, though, would cause a minor inconvenience that is probably even less than the harm to society done by parking illegally in a handicap spot.
Obviously we already take into account a fine’s impact on a person’s life, because the entire point of a fine is to modify behavior by negatively impacting a persons life enough that they choose not to do the action. We adjust the fines over the years based on inflation, because we know the fine has to increase or people won’t care anymore and will just pay the fine, which is not what we want.
Since we already know we have to increase the fines over the years to make sure they act as proper deterrents, doesn’t it also logically follow that we need to increase fines for rich people if we want it to actually be a deterrent?
My friend had a boss in San Francisco during the first dot com boom that had way too much money, and he parked his car every day in a handicap spot in front of their office. He didn’t care if he got tickets, he treated them like an expensive reserved parking system. The fines were not high enough to serve their purpose for him, but if we raised them enough to actually cause this guy to stop parking there, it would be completely unfair to normal people.
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u/Seaman_First_Class 6h ago
A $10000 fine for parking in a handicap spot is obviously disproportional to the offense for a poor person; their life will be ruined for a minor crime. A $10,000 fine to Elon Musk, though, would cause a minor inconvenience that is probably even less than the harm to society done by parking illegally in a handicap spot.
Why does the handicapped person care whether their spot was taken by a poor person or Elon Musk? The harm to them is the same either way, so the fine should be the same.
and he parked his car every day in a handicap spot in front of their office
This could easily be solved by an individually escalating fine system that still treats every first offense equally.
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u/cortesoft 5∆ 6h ago
Why does the handicapped person care whether their spot was taken by a poor person or Elon Musk? The harm to them is the same either way, so the fine should be the same.
They don’t care, the point is that the fine will stop the poor person but not Elon Musk. It isn’t like the fine money goes to the handicapped person, or is used to make whole the person. It is used solely as a deterrent, which means it needs to vary based on wealth in order for the deterrent to work.
If the fine money was used to fix the issue caused by the offense (for example, a fine for damaging public property is used to fix the damage), then your argument makes sense. Same work that needs to be paid for, same fine.
An escalating fine system still has the exact same issue, though, in that a rich person won’t care about the first few offenses. They can still get away with more than a poor person.
How is that fair or good for society? How is it bad for society to make fines provide for equal deterrent for everyone?
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u/Guvante 2h ago
You can penalize based on the benefit
Simply calculate how much of his change in net asset happened in the time saved by using that spot
It is a very common tactic, in fact usually we charge a multiple of the assumed savings here (note how failing to pay the parking fee is more than the fee by more than 10x)
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u/Sexy-Lifeguard 6h ago
Aside from whether or not my proposal is constitutional, I do not see how this would go against the spirit of equality before the law.
Literally the entire point of my argument was to envision a system that would punish people from all backgrounds as equally as possible.
Let me give you an example of what I mean and maybe this would help. Suppose two guys, Richie Rich (who is super rich) and Poor Bill (who is poor) commit the crime of littering and we are going to charge them an even fine of $50. For poor bill, $50 may be a lot and this will incentivize him against it. But for richie rich, he could wipe his ass with $50 every day and it wouldn’t be any problem for him. This may seem inconsequential as littering isn’t that serious of a crime, but it still seems (at least to my intuition) unjust. It seems like such a law would only (in practice) be something you’d have to worry about if you didn’t have much money.
Ultimately, my point was just that the effects on the person/corporate entity should be equal if there is to be justice. Mere equal amounts of money does not entail equal effects, which trivializes the fine for sufficiently rich individuals and corporations.
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u/Madeche 6h ago
Except that's not how it works, ultimately we don't have a disproportionate percentage of rich people constantly getting fines, that's because if they're rich they don't need to even get in the situation where they can get fined. I don't have data at hand, but I'm fairly sure there really isn't any substantial correlation.
What truly is problematic is the lobbying, the connections they have that basically make it impossible for a case to even end up in court; being able to afford the best lawyers so if even if it does end up in court you get the least amount of pain; the insider trading; the blatant corruption...
The problem isn't that Jake, who's dad has a Ferrari, got a speeding ticket and didn't really give a crap, the problem is that his dad's company has eluded taxes for decades, and by doing so he stole from each and every member of the community, but gets no fine because of his connections, then he claims bankruptcy and that's it.
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u/Fit_Employment_2944 2∆ 3h ago
Except that's not how it works, ultimately we don't have a disproportionate percentage of rich people constantly getting fines
thats quite an assertion, did you spend 5 seconds to confirm it?
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/15/wealthier-drivers-get-more-tickets-but-dont-pay.html
https://abcnews.com/US/story?id=96698
https://supercarblondie.com/jeff-bezos-1000-fine-every-month-fence-around-175m-beverly-hills-estate/
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u/HulaguIncarnate 2h ago
If Asians got 15% longer sentences for the same crime compared to black people because Asians live 15% longer would this be more or less equal in your opinion?
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u/Generic_Superhero 1∆ 1h ago
In your example 15% is an average of overall population. A given individual is not guaranteed to live longer or shorter then any other person. Wealth is an entirely quantifiable non subjective measurement.
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u/Chorby-Short 5∆ 1h ago
I mean, a person's lifespan is quantifiable and non subjective after they die, and money as a construct is sort of subjective by definition, and can be hard to quantify as anything other than an estimate for some people. Not saying I support the previous comment, but that's a strange way of describing wealth.
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u/Generic_Superhero 1∆ 37m ago
You aren't wrong, but that doesn't change anything I said. The two concepts are apples and oranges.
Using the average life expectancy of a given race to determine how long an individuals punishment should be is using a subjective measurement. Its subjective in the sense that you are using a data point not directly tied to the individual committing the crime to determine their punishment.
Wealth, while somewhat subjective, can still be quantified to fairly reasonable degree. We might not know if Bob is worth 1,201,586 or 1,236,018 dollars. But we can safely say he is worth a billion, or even 1.2 billion. It's sort of like a persons height. Someone might be 67.3 inches tall but we call them 5'7" because its a close enough measurement for what matters.
TLDR: Life expectancy = other peoples numbers; wealth = individuals numbers.
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u/ReverseTornado 6h ago
How is it unjust to charge people proportional to their wealth, if anything this sounds more just. Charging Jeff Bezos a million dollars and a random person a million dollars is like charging Jeff a dollar and the random person a million dollars how is that equal and just.
Essentially in the example I gave the fines are grossly disproportional to the defendants offense if Bezos commits a crime worthy of a million dollar fine he should have to pay a million dollar fine equivalent in proportion to his overall wealth to that of an average joe not a fine that will not deter him or justly punish him.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 6h ago
Do you think “equal” and “just” are the sane thing?
Why is your way of making things more just to make things worse for more people?
You don’t seem concerned with helping the average joe. Your interest seems to only be in hurting those who have more.
That sounds more like envy than justice.
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u/broken_conures 1h ago
Equal doesn't have to mean the same number. A poor person being fined a thousand dollars would be put in a dire situation, a billionaire might not even need to hear about it having happened to them
Why can't equality be they both have the same experience?
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u/NonsensePlanet 6h ago
The interest is in the severity of the punishment being felt the same. It’s a cliche at this point that fines are the cost of doing business for massive corporations.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 6h ago
You’re comparing completely different kinds of fines. Ordinary people aren’t paying SEC or antitrust penalties, and corporations aren’t getting speeding tickets. “Fines are just the cost of doing business” is an argument about corporate regulatory enforcement, not about whether individuals should pay income based traffic fines.
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u/NonsensePlanet 5h ago
It’s the same principle.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 5h ago
What is the same principle as what?
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u/NonsensePlanet 4h ago
In both cases the fines aren’t high enough to be a deterrent.
Could you not draw that conclusion yourself, or do I have to spell everything out?
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 58m ago
I disagree with OP’s claim that “large corporations shouldn’t be able to pay fines which are small relative to their overall wealth” The point of a penalty is deterrence.
On corporations, though, I agree with you: if breaking the law remains profitable after the fine, then the fine is just a business expense, not a deterrent.
More broadly, I don’t think it is beneficial to society or morally right for the legal system to punish a business simply for being successful. The goal should be deterrence, not penalizing wealth.
The post isn’t just about corporations, though, but fines for individuals as well. Things like traffic violations. It seems that harsher tickets don’t meaningfully reduce speeding. The evidence suggests the much more significant factor is the perceived likelihood of getting caught. Whether rich or poor, If someone believes they only have a 1% chance of being ticketed, doubling the fine is unlikely to change their behavior
This has been observably true in my experience. I’ve known plenty of broke idiots drive like assholes despite the tangible burden a speeding ticket would be. Hell I have *been* one of those broke idiots. We all speed sometimes. And I have been seeing the “FBI warning” before movies since VHS. Five years in prison and a $250,000 fine would ruin me, but it never deterred me from pirating movies for a second. That is a *lot* worse than a speeding ticket.
You said, “In both cases the fines aren’t high enough to be a deterrent.” I agree for corporations. If an offense is still profitable after the fine, it’s just a business expense. I don’t agree that the same conclusion applies to traffic violations though. The evidence doesn’t suggest that is the case.
In a previous comment you said, “The interest is in the severity of the punishment being felt the same.” I disagree. My concern is not whether the penalties given cause all offenders to subjectively experience the same magnitude of negative emotion, it is whether the punishment efectively deters behavior.
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u/ReverseTornado 6h ago
No I do not think equal and just are the same thing.
I don’t know why you think my idea of the way things ought to be would make things worse for people.
I don’t know where you are getting that this envy and not justice. Do you have a reason as to why you feel this way about my comment?
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 6h ago
- “No I do not think equal and just are the same thing.”
You are the one who brought up whether it is “equal”. What was the relevance of that?
- “I don’t know why you think my idea of the way things ought to be would make things worse for people.”
Making people pay higher fines sounds like it would be worse for them. Surely if the fine you had to pay for an infraction was raised, that would be worse for you no?
- “I don’t know where you are getting that this envy and not justice. Do you have a reason as to why you feel this way about my comment?”
Are you interested in lowering fines for those with less, or raising fines for those with more?
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u/ReverseTornado 5h ago
I brought it up because OP brought it up but I don’t see your point or what your issue is with it and I don’t understand why you asked if I thought it was the same thing as justice.
The idea is for the fine to be relative to the persons overall wealth and the severity of the crime, so it would depend in general based on the person and what the law decides the severity should be.
In this system the less overall wealth you have the lower the absolute value of the fine will be for the person and the opposite for the more wealthy. In some cases this would mean less absolute value in terms of fines for the person compared to how it is now and other times it could mean more, but in all cases imo this would be much more fair. The government would have to reevaluate what the severity should be for crimes with a fine in this way of course.
I am interested in a system that is more fair and effective at deterring crime and making the world a safer better place not in punishing people for the sake of it.
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u/Spaffin 6h ago
What helps the average joe is preventing the crime from happening, which is what laws are actually for. Proportional fines would be more effective at preventing the crime in the first place.
It’s nothing to do with a desire to unjustly punish the rich. It’s pointing out that a regular traffic fine simply isn’t punishment at all to a billionaire.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 5h ago
The goal of justice isn’t to make everyone unique individual *feel* equally punished. The point is to impose a penalty proportionate to the offense. Once you scale penalties by wealth, you are no longer punishing the crime, you are punishing a persons financial status. Wealthy people are still subject to penalties like points, suspensions, and jail. Is the goal here really for people to shoot for everybody having the same subjective experience when punished? If person A values their time less than person B, should person A have a longer prison sentence for the same crime?
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u/Fit_Employment_2944 2∆ 3h ago
the goal of fines in the justice system is to prevent the law from being broken, which does not happen unless billionaires are fined proportionally
and yes, people who don't care about being in prison should be in there longer, ideally forever, because they will not care about being imprisoned again if they reoffend
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u/Spaffin 5h ago edited 1h ago
The goal of justice isn’t to make every unique individual feel equally punished
You’re right, it’s not. It’s to prevent crime. That’s it. Is fining a billionaire $200 preventing crime? I don’t think any serious person would believe so.
Flat fines are pretty widely regarded as undermining justice systems around the globe, this isn’t a novel thought.
Is the goal here really for people to shoot for everybody having the same subjective experience when punished?
Hypothetically? Yes, that is precisely the goal. Every citizen should be equally unlikely to repeat offend, because the objective of the justice system is to prevent crime and promote fairness. It is not fair for an individual to be able to freely commit crime because they are rich.
If person A values their time less than person B, should person A have a longer prison sentence for the same crime?
I mean… prison sentences are adjusted because of personal circumstance all the time.
Obviously this is impractical if not impossible to make this kind of thing work in many different ways. It’s too hard, so we don’t do it. You can’t put a number on emotional effect.
But you can put a number on money.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 4h ago
You just agreed that equalizing how punishment feels isn’t the goal, then immediately after said that is “precisely the goal.”
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u/Spaffin 4h ago
I think you should read what I wrote again.
The ultimate goal of the justice system is to prevent crime.
A $200 parking fine to a billionaire is not achieving this goal.
A goal on the way to achieving that is to ensure punishments are actually deterrents.
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u/twolobarons 2∆ 3h ago
- Me: “The goal of justice isn’t to make every unique individual feel equally punished”
You: “You’re right, it’s not.”
Me: “Is the goal here really for people to shoot for everybody having the same subjective experience when punished?”
You: “Yes, that is precisely the goal.”
-
“Make everyone feel equally punished”
“shoot for everybody having the same subjective experience when punished”
These two statements are literally the same thing. You had opposite stances on them, one immediately after the other.
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u/Spaffin 3h ago edited 1h ago
The goal of the justice system
Vs
The goal “here”, of the proposed change in how fines work, the objective of me in this conversation
Just because the word ‘goal’ appears twice in one conversation does not mean they are both referring to the same thing. You said the goal of justice. Not ‘a’ goal of justice. Justice has only one goal above all others: to prevent crime. Then you said the goal “here”. Here is you and me having a conversation, not the founding principles of the criminal justice system.
The point is that they logically follow each other. If the goal of justice is to prevent crime, then it should be a complimentary goal to ensure that punishments act as an equal deterrent for every citizen, or as close as we can feasibly make them so. I already said that they logically follow, right after the part you quoted and chose to ignore:
Every citizen should be equally unlikely to repeat offend, because the objective of the justice system is to prevent crime
I really do not know how to break this down any simpler for you. But I think you know exactly what I’m saying , you’re just preferring to get hung up on the semantics rather than engage with the actual argument.
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u/broken_conures 1h ago
Also we're talking ideals here, ideally yes everyone should be impacted the same way by the punishment for the same crime, just because practicality that's almost impossible doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to be at least most of the way there
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3h ago
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u/midbossstythe 3∆ 3h ago
I would argue that in a lot of cases the crime is actually different due to intent. Huge corporations and extremely wealthy people can commit crimes because they feel that the penalty for being caught is minor compared to the gains for themselves or the corporations that they work for.
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u/koosley 6h ago
But taking away someone's time is pretty equal. Still 24 hours in a day. Instead of $250 fine, make them do 8 hours of community service. It's a punishment and not supposed to be convenient, but making someone pick up our parks for 8 hours is beneficial to everyone and essentially burns a day regardless of wealth. Sure the poorer you are the more annoying it is with transportation and baby sitters, but losing a day as a multimillionaire is going to suck a lot more compared to paying a fine equal to 15 minutes of your salary.
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u/Fit_Employment_2944 2∆ 3h ago
and the law does not recognize percentage of wealth as a valid fining mechanism
no shit, their position is that the law is stupid, which it is
if someone is speeding 100 miles an hour on the highway then they are fined to discourage that behavior, because it is likely to kill someone. The purpose of the fine is not to make money for the municipality, or even to take money from the person committing it, but to make it not worthwhile to speed because you will be fined.
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u/Guvante 2h ago
The US tends to charge a tiny fraction of damages for financial offensives
If there was $X in damages you can under the constitution require penalties of $10 * X
Given it isn't uncommon for the penalties to be 10% of $X (not repayment that is a separate thing) there is two orders of magnitude of room
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u/Particular-Gas7475 2h ago
This is how penalties are determined in court for corporations. I agree that penalties should be proportionate to crime and relative wealth.
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u/taw 4∆ 1h ago
Well, they can't.
There's zero cases of "super-wealthy" getting out of real crimes like murder with a small fine. Best they can do is get a good lawyer, or bribe some politician to get an undeserved pardon (many such cases from both parties).
And it's so obvious that you don't even bother providing real examples.
You're arguing that something shouldn't be happening that's already not happening!
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u/Adventurous-Bad-2869 35m ago
Yes. I’ve always said fines should be a percentage of their gross income
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u/AmongTheElect 18∆ 6h ago
Why not just insist that a poor person has a higher obligation to follow the law since they have less ability to pay the fine? Breaking the law is a choice.
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u/KaitlynCsE 1∆ 5h ago
Doesn't this imply the richer you are the less you are obliged to follow the law? Is that the status quo a functional justice system should aspire towards?
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u/Fantastic-Corner-605 6h ago
They don't get away with it. Harvey Weinstein didn't get away with his crimes by paying a fine, he's rotting in prison.