>

Now choose which individual
Wouldn't that person simply be a scapegoat? It would be very easy for a large company like Google to simply throw a scapegoat at an issue so that the company itself would be able to avoid consequences. What would the punishment even look like? Would the scapegoat be fined? If so, the company would be avoiding the consequences by putting the fine on the scapegoat. >

No. It would be the CEO >

And if there is no CEO? Say it is a co-op, who gets to be criminally responsible for the actions of others in a co-op? Should this also apply to nonprofit organizations? >

Basically I don't want people to direct bad actions and not be held liable for them. >

The problem is that "direct" is such a soft term. Who is truly at fault when an overworked engineer skips safety tests? His manager, who didn't give him enough resources for the project? Middle management, who didn't hire enough people? The VP who put pressure on management to get the project done by date X? The CEO who, based on bad data, told the Board the project would be done by then? The Board, who in order to make profit pressures the CEO to deliver more and faster? The shareholders behind the board? >

Why do you think that holding one person responsible will improve the situation in any way besides the personal satisfaction you get of seeing a person punished? 
Not to mention, like. If I dislike whoever is 'responsible' for my company I have an incentive to break the law to get that person punished. >

If you broke the law you should also go to jail. Not just have the company pay a fine >


If you broke the law you should also go to jail. Not just have the company pay a fine

Why does the CEO/"personal agent" face a punishment for this person's breaking of the law? It seems we have found the person responsible but you still want a different person punished in addition. >

If a company lies to the government and ends up polluting a stream, are you suggesting the employee who submitted the paperwork should be held accountable even if it was at the direction of upper management? >

You are the one who wants an actual person to blame.  What happens when the message telling the employee where to dump what the employee assumes is stream safe, gets deleted and upper management denies ever having assigned the employee to do such a thing?  And how does that differ from a disgruntled employee who polluted a stream and claims they were directly told to dump this by their manager who is now covering his tracks, but in reality the employee is just lying? >

That defies the whole point of criminal law. Criminal law exists to seek out and punish individual who harm society and act immorally. If you are going to use state violence against someone, you need a pretty good reason, and so that person needs to have themselves committed the act and intended to do it.
In your system, people who are not harmful and immoral, those who have committed no acts and no intent, will go to jail. This would go against an essential part of criminal law where only wrongdoers themselves should be held accountable. If you are willing to this, you might as well pick a random person off the street and put them in jail for crimes made by unknown strangers. Not only that does that person not belong in jail, but it does not solve anything. That person will go to jail, but the people that actually do wrong things will get away with it.
Private law is a fine solution to this problem. Private law is not concerned as much as seeking out wrongdoers, but rather seeking out victims. Tort law for a example is much more victim driven, and is much better suited for going after businesses because the element of harmful and moral culpability is not as strict. In torts, you can sue the business as a whole without and individual to blame. I recommend using the right law for the right job, and not reinvent how the different parts of law work. >

If a chemical company pollutes the water and an entire village gets sick or dies, why shouldn't someone be held accountable? The people who made those decisions get paid and then walk away if times get tough. In your response insee not accountability. >


why shouldn't someone be held accountable

The people who committed the act with the intent should be held accountable, not some random person. That's not what criminal law is for, not any place that isn't a tyranny. >

That's my point, though. No one is held accountable.
Take the Wells Fargo fake account scam. The tellers who set up fake accounts for customers aren't punished and the CEO isnt punished. The compmay paid a fine. 
But who told the tellers to break the law and who actually broke the law? Those people weren't held accountable. >


That's my point, though. No one is wbijt held accountable.

If a person robs you in the street, and you never find out who they are, should a random person on that same street be punished in their place? After all, if you don't do that, "No one is wbijt held accountable." If your sibling commits a crime, but flees the country, should the state punish you in order to hold someone accountable? Sometimes, people escape justice, that sucks. What sucks even more is if in addition to that, you misapply justice to another person. Your solution is to correct one wrong with another wrong. Your solution is to put people in prison that don't meet the criminal requirements to be in prison. >

Then there wouldn't be businesses. 
People incorporate, form LLCs, etc. so that WON'T happen, because it's not exactly fair, that an individual person should be held financially, legally, responsible for anything that happens with a company, product, etc.
It's also not fair the other way.
If your kid was injured in a faulty swing -- and you found out that, say, the QC person wasn't doing their job, the people in manufacturing weren't really doing their jobs, the people in the design dept didn't properly safety test, and the managers knew it wasn't safety tested, and there were reports of injuries, but they covered those up...
You'd be happy if the CEO was charged with something, not the several people or the company as a whole, who did it all? >


So often we see business do something bad and no one gets punished.

Maybe criminally punished, but companies always get sued when they do stuff wrong. 

Or the company is fined.

Sometimes that’s the best way to punish the harm. 

Or some punishment is doled-out to “the company” while actual humans paid by the company get off scot free.

Proving the company did something wrong and an individual are too different things. But, to even prove a company did something wrong, you have to show someone who had control over the corporation did something wrong. Or at least knew about it or participated in it. These things are incredibly difficult to prove. 

Higher level managers can sim ppl y quite their jobs and avoid responsibility for bad actions most of the time.

Straight up false. This is not how it works ever. 
Why would it be the CEO and not the directors? The directors are charged with actually overseeing the inner workings of the company. In any event, why should a CEO be punished without it being proven they were culpable? That doesn’t make a ton of sense. 
Also for bankruptcy, it’s better to pay executives not to leave because they a good team of executives is going to put the company in a better position after reorganization than a worse team of executives. Shareholders are paid out the value of their ownership upon liquidation. The public has no standing to complain about a company’s bankruptcy. Usually the people who got the company to that point are fired, shareholders generally don’t like it when a company they own goes into bankruptcy.
My overall impression is that you don’t know how a lot of this stuff works. The mechanics of litigating against a corporation are a pain and proving people did things can be difficult. >

Why the CEO? Why not make the owners (shareholders) of the company go to prison? They're the ones that ultimately control the actions of the CEO and Board of Directors.
Let's follow your logic. The company breaks the law. Instead of a fine, the shareholders are rounded up for prison. So far, so good, right? Those greedy bastards deserve what they get!
But then you remember that you, OP, have a 401(k). Most 401(k) plans are shareholders of company stocks. You are a shareholder. You, OP, get rounded up and hauled off to prison.
Fuck! That's not what I meant!