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A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporati
by JohnBooty 6y ago
A Corporation is a government created liability
shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist"
system or rather a true free market. Corporations are
part of the government regulatory apparatus system.
I'm intrigued. (That's not sarcasm)
What's the libertarian alternative? What are examples of situations where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations?
It seems to me that corporations, minus the liability shield, would still be nearly as potentially dangerous. They are more or less sociopathic entities by necessity; ceasing to exist if they cease to turn profits, a thing they can only do if they compete successfully against their equally sociopathic rivals. Corporations can of course behave responsibly and generously, but this is always going to be at odds with their fundamental mission.
(While all of this sounds anti-corporation, I'm not. Private enterprise is and should be the backbone of society. It's just that it's awfully destructive, unchecked.)
- syshum 6y agoPrivate Enterprise should not be confused with corporations. Especially not modern corporations and all the legal structures that encapsulate them. Libertarian Private enterprise is more like LLC's, and partnerships than Corporations. As to where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations? You see hints of it all the time, anytime you see a situation where someone comments "if a person would have done X they would be in jail" well the Corporation is shielding the people that actually did the harm to society from consequences from their actions. Most of the time the actual bad actors simply move from one corporation to another continuing to inflict manage on society with no accountability because of those liability shield you view it as "sociopathic", but viewing it that way is part of the problem, we have anthropomorphized corporations to were we treat them like people, punish them (the corporations) with fines and other actions but never punish the actual human actors responsible for the activity I understand the need for some kind of limited liability in business, Strict Liability would likely cause very poor investment into private enterprise the problem is with corporations, especially publicly traded corporations we have created such a impenetrable liability shield around them that the incentive curve has shift so far towards "profit by any means" that the people in corporations are only punished when they DO NOT do bad things (i.e Pollute the environment, screw workers, etc) in chasing of more profit, and NEVER when they do those thing at most the corporation may pay a fine for doing it but the actual people responsible are never liable
- JohnBooty 6y agoWe probably won't ever agree, but that gives me some things to think about or at least a greater understanding. Thank you, I appreciate it a lot. I do certainly agree that corporations ought to be less of a liability shield for things that would send a citizen to prison!