"Corporations selling your ass down the road for a dollar"

At 13:56 -0400 2/10/98, Michael Sims wrote:
>I am aghast.  Why not just pull some "facts" from the National
>Enquirer or another equally reputable source?
>
>I would ask Declan how the hearings went but I suspect there'll be a
>Netly piece involved.

Yep, I'll probably write about this. There are three, maybe four, other
Net-related hearings today, which I won't be able to go to, unfortunately.

>None of this is news to Declan of course.  I just get disappointed
>when I see industry mouthpiece after industry mouthpiece without a
>single goal in mind except maximum profit.  Libertarianism in
>action - corporations sell your ass down the road for a dollar and
>some stock options.

I'm sure Michael was upset and not typing clearly. He knows as well as
anyone that libertarians are not pro-business; they're pro-individual
rights. Libertarians spend quite a bit of time complaining about the
Republican habit of funding corporate subsidies.

The pursuit of profit in the free market is not to be discouraged --
without it, we wouldn't have the Internet we have today. Rather, we should
be suspicious of the intersection between the government and the market in
Congress and in federal agencies. I've written elsewhere about the dangers
of industry sellouts on civil liberties -- sellouts and compromises which
are of course opposed by libertarians.

The libertarian Cato Institute opposes the McCain bill at issue in this
hearing.

-Declan

Yes, the corporation, that creation wholly of 
>government, becomes a sort of super-individual - and of course all 
>individuals are equal, but some are just a bit more equal.

No, the people running any size corp. have the same rights as
everyone else, to non-interference, etc.

>When I see a libertarian calling for an elimination of all forms of 
>corporations and a return to sole proprietorships and straight 
>partnerships as the only form of business, then I'll know he's 
>ideologically consistent.  

Actually, libs have nothing for or against corps. ---only govt
interfering with them.

I'm not sure where you got your ideas about liberty, or
what anti-corporate libs you hang out with, but your
model of libertarianism is off.
If the natural (efficient) size of a company is big, so be it.
As long as you don't defraud or use force, you have the right
to grow unimpeded by govt to any size that the market selects.
No interference, no subsidies, same thing.


------------------------------------------------------------
      David Honig                   Orbit Technology
     honig@otc.net                  Intaanetto Jigyoubu

		Lewinsky for President '2012

At 07:10 AM 2/12/98 -0400, Michael Sims wrote:

>Except, of course, that *businesses* count as individuals in a 
>libertarian world.  Yes, the corporation, that creation wholly of 
>government, becomes a sort of super-individual - and of course all 
>individuals are equal, but some are just a bit more equal.

Except that one does not need government to form a limited liability entity.  It was never necessary.  These days in particular with secret voting protocols and anonymous communications, it would be trivial to have a limited liability entity whose owners had no personal liability for organizational debts because they are unknown and unknowable.  Yet they can control the entity without losing their anonymity.  This was always possible.  Now it is easy.

In French corporations were originally called (pardon my spelling) "socit anonime".

Certainly as a cypherpunk, you believe in anonymous organizations.

>When I see a libertarian calling for an elimination of all forms of 
>corporations 

Certainly anarcho libertarians have always opposed government "incorporation" since they opposed government.

>and a return to sole proprietorships and straight 
>partnerships as the only form of business, then I'll know he's 
>ideologically consistent.  

What about Trusts, Companies of Adventurers, lots of other things...

>But very very little time complaining about the *existence* of 
>corporations whose primary function is to shield the important folks 
>who run and fund the corporation from the consequences of their 
>actions.  Come on!  This should be a primary offense!  Individuals 
>with no responsibility!

One can't impose responsibility on all.  Thus, I may be too poor to pay if you sue me.  So don't deal with me.  If you don't want to deal with an anonymous business entity, don't.

DCF

At 07:10 AM 2/12/98 -0400, Michael Sims wrote:

>When I see a libertarian calling for an elimination of all forms of 
>corporations and a return to sole proprietorships and straight 
>partnerships as the only form of business, then I'll know he's 
>ideologically consistent.  Until then, pro-business is the only 
>reasonable way to describe the twisted rationale behind 
>libertarianism.

I've been saying that for a long time. I'm not 100% certain I wish to
eliminate entirely the corporation, but the idea of an 'artificial person'
as an entity to take the blame for crimes committed by real people is
highly dubious to me. If Monty Burns says, "Let's dump the toxic waste in
the school ground, who cares if some kids die!", then it should be he who
faces criminal charges -- not his corporation which gets fined.

A corporation, like any collective entity, is at best a convenience -- a
way to deal with large numbers of individuals by providing a central
identifying tag. This way, "Motorola Chips" can sell to "Apple Computer",
and the deal remains valid even if the chip-seller at Motorola and the
chip-buyer at Apple quit their jobs, because the contract was not between
those two individuals, but between the companies they represented. But just
as there is in truth no 'society', no 'race', no 'people', there is also,
in truth, no corporation -- it must all come down to individual acts and
individual responsibilities.

>Which brings me back to my original point - the AIM representation at 
>the aforementioned hearings.  In Libber-land, there's nothing 
>reprehensible there.  Corporations are lobbying for their "individual 
>rights", one of them being the right to make maximum profit by 
>eliminating/marginalizing competitors.  

Not with the power of government behind them. That's like saying there's
nothing wrong with Joe's Deli asking Vinnie The Torch to pay a little
'visit' to Max's Deli across the street.

You eliminate/marginalize competition by convincing consumers to purchase
your products over theirs. Not by having the government regulate them out
of business. What you're looking at is corporate socialism -- the current
perversion of the 'free market' that America is living under.