I came across an interesting article explaining the story behind corporate personhood and how it led to the government acknowledging it. Now, I'm just a layman when it comes to US economic and political issues (I'm Dutch) and as a libertarian I am merely interested in this.
The following paragraph from the article kind of sums it up for me:
"Another great irony of this event is that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect human persons because of their vulnerability in relations with other human persons who may be much more powerful. But corporations are bestowed with potential immortality, can change their identity in a day, or even tear off parts of themselves and instantly turn those parts into entirely new “persons.” Yet regardless of all these superhuman powers, corporations are now considered persons."
I think this would be a strong argument against corporate personhood, but I'll withhold my judgement until someone in here can prove otherwise.
All I'm reading is that he prefers something else (as well as meaningless appeals to authority and outright falsity). Yawn. Not even an argument.
It never occurred to him to wonder how the government skews economic incentives or that the real free market isn't based on the bill of rights or silly government-enforced ideas about personhood. And democracy is garbage and I could care less about its demise.
a.began: I came across an interesting article explaining the story behind corporate personhood and how it led to the government acknowledging it. Now, I'm just a layman when it comes to US economic and political issues (I'm Dutch) and as a libertarian I am merely interested in this. The following paragraph from the article kind of sums it up for me: "Another great irony of this event is that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect human persons because of their vulnerability in relations with other human persons who may be much more powerful. But corporations are bestowed with potential immortality, can change their identity in a day, or even tear off parts of themselves and instantly turn those parts into entirely new “persons.” Yet regardless of all these superhuman powers, corporations are now considered persons." I think this would be a strong argument against corporate personhood, but I'll withhold my judgement until someone in here can prove otherwise.
A lot of people in this forum are under the impression that corporations or entities with similar characteristics would not exist without the state. Ask yourself why wouldn't a free market construct something similar to the current corporations that exist? I think in a free society these types of intitutions will still be created and in fact are quite useful for raising capital and limiting liability which would be things that the free-market might very well create without the state.
All I really got from the article is the concept of 'personhood' was a counter-measure to protect against predation by the State.
In ten Pennsylvania townships, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) has helped local governments pass ordinances denying corporate personhood in order to block large corporate factory farms from setting up in areas previously the sole territory of family farms.
Interesting that they have to deny them their personhood in order to also deny them the ability to buy land and farm it like the family farms are perfectly able to do.
I wonder if they also deny them their 'legal entity' status?
a.began:the Bill of Rights was designed to protect human persons because of their vulnerability in relations with other human persons who may be much more powerful.
No it wasn't. The Bill of Rights limits the federal government, not "persons".
JonBostwick: a.began:the Bill of Rights was designed to protect human persons because of their vulnerability in relations with other human persons who may be much more powerful. No it wasn't. The Bill of Rights limits the federal government, not "persons".
Couldn't it be both? I mean, the federal government is made up of such persons.
I think at the foundation you are right, the government consists out of individuals acting. So, the constitution tries to protect individuals from individuals holding a certain office.
I also think that cooperations are indeed a construction that can only exist because of the priviliges it gets from the powers - I run a cooperation btw.-.
In a free society cooperations(in the sense they are used today) would have no place to exist.
And welcome to the forum, always great to find that other europeans cater to the same ideas one has (I am in Germany)
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
a.began: Couldn't it be both? I mean, the federal government is made up of such persons.
The government can only act thru individuals in its employ so in that sense, you are correct. However, the Constitution only applies to government.
Where did you even come up with that formulation of the Bill of Rights? You could not be more wrong on so many levels. Civil law jurisprudence is just awful.
nhaag:In a free society cooperations(in the sense they are used today) would have no place to exist.
Why not? Would they be banned?
Maxliberty: A lot of people in this forum are under the impression that corporations or entities with similar characteristics would not exist without the state. Ask yourself why wouldn't a free market construct something similar to the current corporations that exist? I think in a free society these types of intitutions will still be created and in fact are quite useful for raising capital and limiting liability which would be things that the free-market might very well create without the state.
Corporations would definitely exist in a libertarian society. I say that because libertarian theory (as I understand it) is explicitly based upon freedom of association. Corporations are nothing more than private, voluntary organizations designed to make money, no different than private, voluntary organizations designed for educational, recreational, or religious purposes (which would also be welcomed in a libertarian society).
While it is true that corporations are chartered by the state, that is only because of tradition (or, more accurately, state interference in private organizations). Statists have always been afraid of people forming groups and organizations to serve their own purposes and have sought ways to supervise and restrict them.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
a.began: The following paragraph from the article kind of sums it up for me: "Another great irony of this event is that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect human persons because of their vulnerability in relations with other human persons who may be much more powerful. But corporations are bestowed with potential immortality, can change their identity in a day, or even tear off parts of themselves and instantly turn those parts into entirely new “persons."
"Another great irony of this event is that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect human persons because of their vulnerability in relations with other human persons who may be much more powerful. But corporations are bestowed with potential immortality, can change their identity in a day, or even tear off parts of themselves and instantly turn those parts into entirely new “persons."
So can families. Families are evil and must be destroyed!!!!!
scineram: nhaag:In a free society cooperations(in the sense they are used today) would have no place to exist. Why not? Would they be banned?
Nope, how could they be banned? A coorporation is an entity that has a state privilege, that is it is seen as a legal person. In a free society there can be no privileges whatsoever, hence nothing like a construct of an artificial person with rights that can only be held by individuals.
Things like limited liability and - theoretical - eternal life are not going to work unless you have a coercive body that grants those rights. This does not mean cooperations will vanish in a free society but the kind of cooperations i was reffering to will cease to exist, as they are based on privileges.
nhaag:Things like limited liability and - theoretical - eternal life are not going to work unless you have a coercive body that grants those rights.
Anarchy does not mean freedom from coercion. It just means that no one individual or entity has a monopoly on coercion.
Thus, people who organize for the purpose of spreading risk and making money will put an "Inc." by their name and tell you that that means if you want to contract with them for the intermodal shipment of your goods, your only recourse is against the corporate entity. This corporate veil will be upheld by the private tribunal/self-defense agency they subscribe to. You don't like it, find some little sole proprietorship with no assets or influence to ship your goods. Joe's Intermodal Brokerage and Septic Service, perhaps.
Byzantine: nhaag:Things like limited liability and - theoretical - eternal life are not going to work unless you have a coercive body that grants those rights. Anarchy does not mean freedom from coercion. It just means that no one individual or entity has a monopoly on coercion. Thus, people who organize for the purpose of spreading risk and making money will put an "Inc." by their name and tell you that that means if you want to contract with them for the intermodal shipment of your goods, your only recourse is against the corporate entity. This corporate veil will be upheld by the private tribunal/self-defense agency they subscribe to. You don't like it, find some little sole proprietorship with no assets or influence to ship your goods. Joe's Intermodal Brokerage and Septic Service, perhaps.
Well, I am not sure that I agree on your view that anarchy replaces the coercive monopoly of the state with a rigth to coerce by every human being. But put that aside, I sure have no objections against a legal construct that would limit the liability against someone that voluntary enters a contract with such a firm. I doubt very much if I would agree that this firm in turn has the right to engae in any activity that has the potential to harm a third party without being liable to that third party.
Look at it like this:
I form a mining corp with some friends and we decide to give all our rights regarding any activity the firm is going to undertake to the humble CEO Greg. In our statutes we write, that no one of us can be held responsible against anyone that agrees to make any contract with us if the loss we would face through such a liability would be higher than 500 Grungies (that is our medium of exchange). Now, if we find some customers or suppliers that would agree, great for us. Yet, in operating a firm there might come up activities that can involve aggression against parties that have never made any kind of contract with us. Say, the lazy laborer John forgets to shut the valve that devides the acidic fluids we need to extract the metal out of the ore, from the circuit we have for our other water we use to let flow into the river near our mine.
Now the firm has aggressed against the people that live down the river because they are fishermen and the acidic water killed all the fish, made themselves and their kids sick and whatever other goodies we know can happen from such an "accident".
Now all of these people can get are 500 Grungies together to make up for the violation of their property rights? The current system of limited liability allows exactly such a thing - the swissair desaster after the crash of their aircraft off the coast of new england is a good example for that-. In a free society and a free market, it would be impossible to limit liability in such cases, because, it is, at the end of the day a single sided decsion. Only by receiving a privilege from the state such a thing is possible.
In a free society each individual is liable for any action he/she untertakes. To me there does not seem to be a way around that, and therefor limited liability for cooperations could only exist in the way I described it above, through contracting with customers and suppliers to have them waive their rights to compensation above a certain amount. Yet, that does not free any member of the firm to be fully liable to any other individual that might be harmed without having such a contract.
nhaag: Byzantine: nhaag:Things like limited liability and - theoretical - eternal life are not going to work unless you have a coercive body that grants those rights. Anarchy does not mean freedom from coercion. It just means that no one individual or entity has a monopoly on coercion. Thus, people who organize for the purpose of spreading risk and making money will put an "Inc." by their name and tell you that that means if you want to contract with them for the intermodal shipment of your goods, your only recourse is against the corporate entity. This corporate veil will be upheld by the private tribunal/self-defense agency they subscribe to. You don't like it, find some little sole proprietorship with no assets or influence to ship your goods. Joe's Intermodal Brokerage and Septic Service, perhaps. Well, I am not sure that I agree on your view that anarchy replaces the coercive monopoly of the state with a rigth to coerce by every human being. But put that aside, I sure have no objections against a legal construct that would limit the liability against someone that voluntary enters a contract with such a firm. I doubt very much if I would agree that this firm in turn has the right to engae in any activity that has the potential to harm a third party without being liable to that third party. Look at it like this: I form a mining corp with some friends and we decide to give all our rights regarding any activity the firm is going to undertake to the humble CEO Greg. In our statutes we write, that no one of us can be held responsible against anyone that agrees to make any contract with us if the loss we would face through such a liability would be higher than 500 Grungies (that is our medium of exchange). Now, if we find some customers or suppliers that would agree, great for us. Yet, in operating a firm there might come up activities that can involve aggression against parties that have never made any kind of contract with us. Say, the lazy laborer John forgets to shut the valve that devides the acidic fluids we need to extract the metal out of the ore, from the circuit we have for our other water we use to let flow into the river near our mine. Now the firm has aggressed against the people that live down the river because they are fishermen and the acidic water killed all the fish, made themselves and their kids sick and whatever other goodies we know can happen from such an "accident". Now all of these people can get are 500 Grungies together to make up for the violation of their property rights? The current system of limited liability allows exactly such a thing - the swissair desaster after the crash of their aircraft off the coast of new england is a good example for that-. In a free society and a free market, it would be impossible to limit liability in such cases, because, it is, at the end of the day a single sided decsion. Only by receiving a privilege from the state such a thing is possible. In a free society each individual is liable for any action he/she untertakes. To me there does not seem to be a way around that, and therefor limited liability for cooperations could only exist in the way I described it above, through contracting with customers and suppliers to have them waive their rights to compensation above a certain amount. Yet, that does not free any member of the firm to be fully liable to any other individual that might be harmed without having such a contract.
In that senario, the responsibility would fall on lazy laborer John. After lazy laborer John goes to debtors prison, other laborers would make sure that the company they go to work for has liability insurence. If something like that happened in the future (heaven forbid), the insurence would cover it. Problem solved.
nhaag:Well, I am not sure that I agree on your view that anarchy replaces the coercive monopoly of the state with a rigth to coerce by every human being.
That is the only way to assure freedom. If that concept frightens you, then you need to focus your efforts on strengthening the state against the coming anarchy. Also, you mentioned rights, not me. I find "rights" to be a meaningless concept most of the time. People throw it around constantly.
nhaag:I doubt very much if I would agree that this firm in turn has the right to engae in any activity that has the potential to harm a third party without being liable to that third party.
Where did you get that from? The corporate veil only protects shareholders, not the corporation.
nhaag:Only by receiving a privilege from the state such a thing is possible.
No. The privilege can be granted by any sufficiently armed and organized group.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Free societies will not be run by philosophy majors. They will be run by armed men.
Perhaps you are missing my point. A state is when only some of the men have the ability to inflict deadly force. A free society is when all the men have the ability to inflict deadly force. If you know any other way to guarantee individual liberty I'd love to hear it.
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