5 ms·

Corporations are just voluntary associations of people, are they not? It seems strange to allow something for an individual, but to forbid groups of people to a

Corporations are just voluntary associations of people, are they not? It seems strange to allow something for an individual, but to forbid groups of people to associate with each other and carry out the same activity. I also think that calling persuasion 'coercion' is misleading. Coercion implies the threat of force or violence. You and your family still have the choice of switching off your TV, not using facebook or twitter, living your life as you want. Assuming you can live in a community of like-minded people such that there are few social costs of doing so for you and your family. I would like to see more such communities, especially among people working in tech. Restricting some practices by businesses would lead to foreign businesses and cultures becoming more attractive to consumers.

LocalH 6y ago
When corporations grow above a certain size (the exact size of which is for another discussion), they tend to gain power against the individual. I'm not sure which is worse - powerful government, or powerful corporation. Both serve their own interests ahead of individual liberty, and collectively it means that people are less free and more beholden to corporate interests. I don't want to put so many restrictions on small business, because they're more directly driven by individuals (although if their behavior starts having a significant negative impact on individuals, then perhaps that can be investigated). Small business has far less power to negatively impact individuals when compared to multi-billion-dollar multinational organizations. I believe that society should favor and protect the freedom of the individual over the freedom of the large corporation. Without those individuals, society is useless. Of course, that's sidestepping the issue that society far too often sticks its teeth in where it doesn't belong, and won't bite down where they'd actually be useful. Your last sentence is honestly a copout (not on your part personally, but in general as an intellectual idea). That basically embodies a race to the bottom, as countries around the world erode freedom, and the rest of the world "harmonizes" so as not to be disadvantaged on the world stage. You see this now with the current copyright situation. It's kind of the same idea as the GPL protecting the greater freedom of software by restricting some of the freedoms that a developer may wish to have. Many similar arguments can apply too, as for example I've heard it said "GPL's restrictions will just push people to use less-restrictive licenses" That may be somewhat true, but there are also people who value the greater freedom more than their personal freedom to use the software in a non-free manner. Note that this isn't an endorsement of GPL over other licenses, just a parallel to be drawn that is somewhat relevant to HN.
- agent008t 6y ago
  I guess you approached the problem I have with libertarian arguments (which I tend to find intellectually appealing): if a corporation is powerful enough, it becomes barely distinguishable from government in practice, except without any democratic governance. At the extreme end you have a corporation that owns all the land in your nation and you have to abide by their arbitrary rules to be on their private property. Yes, they cannot physically assault you the way a government can, but you may be left with few options but to sign a contract you may otherwise not have wanted to sign (and then the government can physically assault you for breaking that contract). We are sort of approaching a standard argument between classical and modern liberals, so it would be pointless to just repeat the same tired arguments. Having said that, I would love to see more of thoughtful debate between classical and modern liberals. Usually you tend to see both sides just preaching to their choirs or a very shallow debate at best.
Super_Jambo 6y ago
Corporations are obviously far more than just an association of people. There are huge tomes of legislation that define them, give them extra powers & limit their actions: Limited Liability, Tax codes, Health and Safety, Child Labour, Employee exploitation. Many of these laws are written in blood. So no, legislation that limited large companies ability to exploit the heuristics and biases of their customers would not be 'strange'. We can also legislate against foreign companies. This is an argument to scrap OSHA and allow slavery. How else, after all, can businesses be expected to compete globally?
- alentist 6y ago
  > Tax codes, Health and Safety, Child Labour, Employee exploitation These also apply to individuals.
bonoboTP 6y ago
In another discussion on philosophy someone mentioned a principle they didn't have a name for, but applies here as well. Their example was that you can ethically look at a license plate and memorize it, but if you get a network of people at strategic positions of a town to meticulously write down all license plates 24/7 and collect this in a central place, that becomes an unethical/illegal privacy violation. Enough quantitative change becomes qualitative. Ice is just a bunch of water molecules just a bit differently organized. Graphite is worthless, even though it's the same atoms as diamond, but differently organized. Many people joining together into a corporation can become its own thing, acting as if it had "goals" on its own that may be not in line with the goals of the individual participants. Corporations are real entities separate from individuals. It's emergence. It's a "socially constructed" entity but no less real. Yuval Harari describes this very convincingly in Sapiens.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Im not sure I follow your opening premise. Why is strategic tracking of license plates unethical? I am pretty sure it is not illegal. You can pay a private detective to follow someone around town taking pictures.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    In Europe, even before the GDPR, but especially after it, this would be illegal. It's personally identifiable information and tracking it requires consent. Private investigators - not sure how legal that is around here and what are the constraints. Example - for a job application I recently needed a background check by a US company. As soon as I filled out my current location as a European country, a consent form popped up. They can't go sniffing around even in the public records and compile stacks of background info on people at the scale a company does this. Lots of things are public outdoors only with the common sense understanding that it's ephemeral, is just remembered by people's imperfect memory and won't be meticulously categorized and stored somewhere, unless there is consent. Now, you can make small scale notes and a personal journal about whom you got to know at a party etc. You can take tourist shots and have random people in the pictures but you can't follow people around and photograph them specifically as the main subject of the photo without their consent. Public figures and officials like the police don't have such privacy rights on duty. It's about the scale of it, and common sense judgment of whether it systematic data collection or something just happening normally as life goes on. But I'm not a lawyer, I'm just describing the broad principle. The law and people's intuition may be different in the US. ---- If you don't like this, think about another example: hitting/patting your friend on the back as banter or congratulations or something. How strongly do I have to hit them to commit assault? What if it's my frail grandma? Intent, scale and common sense matter. There is no law saying the exact amount of force I am allowed to apply.
cycomanic 6y ago
I have a solution, if corporations are just voluntary associations of people, then all the people voluntarily associated with the association should be responsible for the corporations actions. So if the corporation is caught breaking the law, all shareholders become personally responsible and face jail time. No more shielding from personal responsibility with limited liability etc..
analog31 6y ago
>>> Corporations are just voluntary associations of people, are they not? No. Corporations are a creature of government policy, and receive entitlements that sole proprietorships or general partnerships do not receive, such as limitation of liability.

LocalH 6y ago

When corporations grow above a certain size (the exact size of which is for another discussion), they tend to gain power against the individual. I'm not sure which is worse - powerful government, or powerful corporation. Both serve their own interests ahead of individual liberty, and collectively it means that people are less free and more beholden to corporate interests. I don't want to put so many restrictions on small business, because they're more directly driven by individuals (although if their behavior starts having a significant negative impact on individuals, then perhaps that can be investigated). Small business has far less power to negatively impact individuals when compared to multi-billion-dollar multinational organizations. I believe that society should favor and protect the freedom of the individual over the freedom of the large corporation. Without those individuals, society is useless. Of course, that's sidestepping the issue that society far too often sticks its teeth in where it doesn't belong, and won't bite down where they'd actually be useful. Your last sentence is honestly a copout (not on your part personally, but in general as an intellectual idea). That basically embodies a race to the bottom, as countries around the world erode freedom, and the rest of the world "harmonizes" so as not to be disadvantaged on the world stage. You see this now with the current copyright situation. It's kind of the same idea as the GPL protecting the greater freedom of software by restricting some of the freedoms that a developer may wish to have. Many similar arguments can apply too, as for example I've heard it said "GPL's restrictions will just push people to use less-restrictive licenses" That may be somewhat true, but there are also people who value the greater freedom more than their personal freedom to use the software in a non-free manner. Note that this isn't an endorsement of GPL over other licenses, just a parallel to be drawn that is somewhat relevant to HN.

agent008t 6y ago
I guess you approached the problem I have with libertarian arguments (which I tend to find intellectually appealing): if a corporation is powerful enough, it becomes barely distinguishable from government in practice, except without any democratic governance. At the extreme end you have a corporation that owns all the land in your nation and you have to abide by their arbitrary rules to be on their private property. Yes, they cannot physically assault you the way a government can, but you may be left with few options but to sign a contract you may otherwise not have wanted to sign (and then the government can physically assault you for breaking that contract). We are sort of approaching a standard argument between classical and modern liberals, so it would be pointless to just repeat the same tired arguments. Having said that, I would love to see more of thoughtful debate between classical and modern liberals. Usually you tend to see both sides just preaching to their choirs or a very shallow debate at best.

Super_Jambo 6y ago

Corporations are obviously far more than just an association of people. There are huge tomes of legislation that define them, give them extra powers & limit their actions: Limited Liability, Tax codes, Health and Safety, Child Labour, Employee exploitation. Many of these laws are written in blood. So no, legislation that limited large companies ability to exploit the heuristics and biases of their customers would not be 'strange'. We can also legislate against foreign companies. This is an argument to scrap OSHA and allow slavery. How else, after all, can businesses be expected to compete globally?

alentist 6y ago
> Tax codes, Health and Safety, Child Labour, Employee exploitation These also apply to individuals.

bonoboTP 6y ago

In another discussion on philosophy someone mentioned a principle they didn't have a name for, but applies here as well. Their example was that you can ethically look at a license plate and memorize it, but if you get a network of people at strategic positions of a town to meticulously write down all license plates 24/7 and collect this in a central place, that becomes an unethical/illegal privacy violation. Enough quantitative change becomes qualitative. Ice is just a bunch of water molecules just a bit differently organized. Graphite is worthless, even though it's the same atoms as diamond, but differently organized. Many people joining together into a corporation can become its own thing, acting as if it had "goals" on its own that may be not in line with the goals of the individual participants. Corporations are real entities separate from individuals. It's emergence. It's a "socially constructed" entity but no less real. Yuval Harari describes this very convincingly in Sapiens.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
Im not sure I follow your opening premise. Why is strategic tracking of license plates unethical? I am pretty sure it is not illegal. You can pay a private detective to follow someone around town taking pictures.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  In Europe, even before the GDPR, but especially after it, this would be illegal. It's personally identifiable information and tracking it requires consent. Private investigators - not sure how legal that is around here and what are the constraints. Example - for a job application I recently needed a background check by a US company. As soon as I filled out my current location as a European country, a consent form popped up. They can't go sniffing around even in the public records and compile stacks of background info on people at the scale a company does this. Lots of things are public outdoors only with the common sense understanding that it's ephemeral, is just remembered by people's imperfect memory and won't be meticulously categorized and stored somewhere, unless there is consent. Now, you can make small scale notes and a personal journal about whom you got to know at a party etc. You can take tourist shots and have random people in the pictures but you can't follow people around and photograph them specifically as the main subject of the photo without their consent. Public figures and officials like the police don't have such privacy rights on duty. It's about the scale of it, and common sense judgment of whether it systematic data collection or something just happening normally as life goes on. But I'm not a lawyer, I'm just describing the broad principle. The law and people's intuition may be different in the US. ---- If you don't like this, think about another example: hitting/patting your friend on the back as banter or congratulations or something. How strongly do I have to hit them to commit assault? What if it's my frail grandma? Intent, scale and common sense matter. There is no law saying the exact amount of force I am allowed to apply.

cycomanic 6y ago

I have a solution, if corporations are just voluntary associations of people, then all the people voluntarily associated with the association should be responsible for the corporations actions. So if the corporation is caught breaking the law, all shareholders become personally responsible and face jail time. No more shielding from personal responsibility with limited liability etc..

analog31 6y ago

>>> Corporations are just voluntary associations of people, are they not? No. Corporations are a creature of government policy, and receive entitlements that sole proprietorships or general partnerships do not receive, such as limitation of liability.