If I start a company with the express purpose of having it commit crimes, it will be shut down and everyone employed will be fired. That's not on the government, that's on me, the employer. So then where is the line that we draw that says how badly a company needs to behave or how many crimes it needs to commit to justify it being dissolved? We should not tolerate crime for the sake of the livelihoods of the henchmen. "The death star is bad, but think of how many people would be unemployed if we stopped them" is exactly the argument they want you to make.

The theory is that, _once it becomes policy and happens a couple of times_, employees will pay attention to what their company is doing, and get out if they think they're in danger. It aligns individual morality with self interest, and will crater a company that starts sliding towards dissolution.

Thus actual enforcement becomes almost a non-issue.

I'm not sure I buy that the janitorial staff is supposed to keep up on the dark patterns in the sign up page, but that's the theory.

To be consistent you'd have to be opposed to venture capital shutting down and selling off companies as well.

To be fully consistent you'd have to be opposed to firings and layoffs in general (except as the result of a commission of a crime by the person so fired).

I'd be happy with a corporate death penalty that resulted in the stockholders being wiped out, the executives (and possibly board) being fired and barred from the industry, and executive control of the company being taken over by someone like John J. Ray III. This would allow either a restructuring of the company or gradually winding it down in such a way that the non-executive employees and bondholders aren't screwed over.

I would suppose whoever is being forced to terminate their employees is doing so under the threat of state violence (men with guns), but the employees being fired are not being threatened with any force, they're just losing their job.

Violence is the only language the state knows.