Precisely that. A fine is a simple non-violent way of enforcing consequences for actions we, as a society, want to discourage.

Here in Poland I have met too many corpo-achievers literally bragging that they just put all their speeding tickets on the corpo-card because it's _peanuts_, so they drive as fast and as loose as they feel...

And no, things are not simple, but fines being proportional to income is better than fixed fines.