When this question is asked, it's always with an implicit bias that executives are all morally bankrupt demons that would be beaten to death by the public if not for police.

My response to that is: we should change the laws.

Nobody ever asks this question thinking about multi-generation family businesses where the executive is the head of household and if everything works out, the business will be passed down to their progeny.

Of course, it also begs the question why do we accept this?

> with barely any checks on their political and financial power

I fail to see the difference?

When was the last time a warlord stole your children?

Personally - never... but illegal adoptions are a very dark side of human trafficking so you may want to be more careful with your example. The truth is that we live in a far better society than fifty or a hundred or a thousand years prior - we have far more access to justice. But if you think that access to justice is universal then there are some hard truths in your future.