The Place of Enterprise Liability in the Control of Corporate Conduct

Abstract

One does not have to believe that corporations are to blame for society's problems, or think ill of the persons who (in the popular but overstated expression) "run them," to be concerned about corporate accountability.Public focus is justified, if only by the increasing importance of corporations in our lives.More and more, it is they,' and perhaps an increasingly concentrated group of them, 2 who produce, pollute, distribute, invest, swindle, and farm.And to whom else do we look to plumb-and market-the mysteries of the human cell? 3 In this setting, the success of the law as a social instrumentdeterring, rehabilitating, securing effective compensation for victims, educating citizens between right and wrong 4 -turns upon its capacity to deal with the corporation as a basic unit of communal activity.