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Also libertarian minded....have you considered that in a natural state, businesses this large would be very hard to maintain? The fundamental business structure

Also libertarian minded....have you considered that in a natural state, businesses this large would be very hard to maintain? The fundamental business structure we have today is based around a government-sanctioned "personhood". If you could strip this away, there would be no corporate veil, and you could sue the person who failed to act (or whom acted wrongly) and did you wrong. Think of bankers at Wells Fargo creating false accounts in customer names...hire investigator or do your own, sue, discover, repeat...there would be MUCH MORE downside to bad behavior, even if the upside is there. I think personally that organizations like GORE would exist, and who knows what else might emerge...more co-ops? Of course this does require 3rd-party alternate court systems (maybe like cert issuers, but held to the same liability standard above?)...our current system cannot handle this, so it may be largely academic thoughts.

dontdoitpls 7y ago
I've thought about how little risk people have doing business, but how much risk customers and the environment take by LLC licenses. Or how inflation forces people to grow at whatever expense/ethics necessary. Our 401ks have unethical companies getting pumped because tax advantages and monetary policy. I wonder if the free market would be safer and more conservative.
sfj 7y ago
If you can be sued into oblivion for even starting a business, who would try? The corporate veil is intended to help the little guy.
- graylights 7y ago
  If you're doing oblivion-dollars damage to someone, why shouldn't you be accountable. Otherwise you're just making society pay the cost.
  - sfj 7y ago
    Between 36% and 53% of small businesses get sued every year according to this article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/basharubin/2014/07/14/youre-going-to-get-sued/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/basharubin... If suits only happened when businesses actually did something that truly did damage to society, then I'd agree. But reality is far from this.
    - istjohn 7y ago
      Lawsuits are part of doing business, just like taxes and accounting.
- lmm 7y ago
  Until recently doctors and auditors weren't allowed to be limited-liability companies. There was still a ready supply of people willing to run those businesses as partnerships, with personal liability. There were good and bad firms, just not megascale conglomerates. The "liberalisation" of those rules didn't help the little guy, just the opposite: auditing became concentrated in a handful of giant companies, and quality predictably declined.
devmunchies 7y ago
> have you considered that in a natural state a natural state would not have technology. I would also tend to be libertarian if technology didn't exist. Technology changes the game: - you can process millions of transactions a minute without a bottle neck from humans - you can produce plastic, and lots of it - you can migrate hundreds of thousand of human around the world, which would normally be an invasion - you can destroy the environment (not so easy without technology) - you can addict an entire generation of humans to a device (video games, porn, social media) Without technology there is only so much a person or organization can do.

dontdoitpls 7y ago

I've thought about how little risk people have doing business, but how much risk customers and the environment take by LLC licenses. Or how inflation forces people to grow at whatever expense/ethics necessary. Our 401ks have unethical companies getting pumped because tax advantages and monetary policy. I wonder if the free market would be safer and more conservative.

sfj 7y ago

If you can be sued into oblivion for even starting a business, who would try? The corporate veil is intended to help the little guy.

graylights 7y ago
If you're doing oblivion-dollars damage to someone, why shouldn't you be accountable. Otherwise you're just making society pay the cost.
- sfj 7y ago
  Between 36% and 53% of small businesses get sued every year according to this article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/basharubin/2014/07/14/youre-going-to-get-sued/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/basharubin... If suits only happened when businesses actually did something that truly did damage to society, then I'd agree. But reality is far from this.
  - istjohn 7y ago
    Lawsuits are part of doing business, just like taxes and accounting.
lmm 7y ago
Until recently doctors and auditors weren't allowed to be limited-liability companies. There was still a ready supply of people willing to run those businesses as partnerships, with personal liability. There were good and bad firms, just not megascale conglomerates. The "liberalisation" of those rules didn't help the little guy, just the opposite: auditing became concentrated in a handful of giant companies, and quality predictably declined.

devmunchies 7y ago

> have you considered that in a natural state a natural state would not have technology. I would also tend to be libertarian if technology didn't exist. Technology changes the game: - you can process millions of transactions a minute without a bottle neck from humans - you can produce plastic, and lots of it - you can migrate hundreds of thousand of human around the world, which would normally be an invasion - you can destroy the environment (not so easy without technology) - you can addict an entire generation of humans to a device (video games, porn, social media) Without technology there is only so much a person or organization can do.