Until recently doctors and auditors weren't allowed to be limited-liability companies. There was still a ready supply of people willing to run those businesses as partnerships, with personal liability. There were good and bad firms, just not megascale conglomerates. The "liberalisation" of those rules didn't help the little guy, just the opposite: auditing became concentrated in a handful of giant companies, and quality predictably declined.

If you're doing oblivion-dollars damage to someone, why shouldn't you be accountable. Otherwise you're just making society pay the cost.