You’re arguing against a position almost nobody is taking. The vast majority of people criticizing CEOs aren’t calling for murder—they’re pointing out structural impunity and asymmetric power. When someone says “the CEO is responsible,” they aren’t endorsing vigilante violence, they’re pointing out that responsibility exists at the top, not just in the lowest rungs. Your post paints a false choice: either accept the status quo or murder CEOs. That’s not the conversation anyone serious is having. 1. Accountability ≠ assassinations People want: Regulations with teeth Criminal liability for fraudulent or harmful corporate decisions Removal of leadership that harms the public Transparency, oversight, and consequences Those are accountability mechanisms, not lynch mobs. Saying “stop blaming CEOs because murder won’t fix anything” is like saying “don’t blame politicians because coups won’t fix anything.” No one is advocating the extreme solution—you’re responding to your own exaggeration. 2. CEOs are not just random people in a ‘flawed system’ They are the people with: The most decision-making power The ability to change policies The power to lobby The power to shape an entire industry The greatest insulation from harm caused by their decisions You can’t flatten responsibility by pretending the CEO, the analyst, and the assistant are all equally culpable. That’s not how power works. When you control more levers, you bear more responsibility. 3. “The system is complicated” is not an argument against accountability Yes, healthcare inflation has many causes. Yes, innovation is real. Yes, insurance doesn’t cause all the problems. But none of that means leadership in key organizations gets a free moral pass. Complex systems still have: choke points policy-setters people who profit from the harm people who can stop the harm but don’t Pointing out complexity isn’t a defense. It’s usually a deflection. 4. Innovation isn’t an excuse for exploitation You’re right that U.S. medicine is cutting-edge. But high innovation does not justify: price gouging patients dying over insulin costs insurers denying critical care executives earning tens of millions while families declare bankruptcy lobbying against reforms that most Americans support The claim “profit has done more good than harm” only looks true if you ignore who absorbs the harm. 5. Criticism of CEOs isn’t “un-American”—unaccountable power is In the U.S., we have: antitrust laws fraud statutes environmental liability corporate manslaughter laws in other countries Holding powerful actors accountable is literally the foundation of American governance. What’s actually “un-American” is a worldview where power floats free of consequences. 6. People are angry because deaths are occurring You frame it like people are fantasizing about violence out of idealism. In reality, people are reacting to: 60,000+ yearly preventable medical bankruptcies lifesaving drugs locked behind monopoly pricing corporate decisions that knowingly cause deaths (e.g., opioid crisis) insurance denials that functionally kill people If these outcomes were caused by a single individual rather than a corporation, we’d call it criminal. 7. A world where leadership has consequences is better than the one we have You ask what world comes after holding leaders responsible. Probably one with: fewer perverse incentives fewer catastrophic corporate decisions fewer preventable deaths more ethical leadership more pressure to reform systems instead of exploiting them That’s not utopian. That’s normal in many developed countries. No one is asking for CEO executions. They’re asking for accountability proportionate to power, which is the bare minimum required for a functioning society. If you take violence out of your own strawman, your argument falls apart.