4 ms·

In a free market environment, neither would have them.

sudosysgen 4y ago
There can be no such thing as a real free market. It's an inherently contradictory concept because it necessarily relies on a government strong enough to impose a private property rights regime but at the same time act against its own interests.
- mypastself 4y ago
  The initial argument was about whether or not unions could be considered a part of a true free market, and whether champions of capitalism should support their existence. Your argument is that a free market cannot exist at all, which is not exactly what the discussion is about.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    The capitalist free market is something that would reasonably he understood as free markets as they exist in the real system called capitalism under which coeporations have special legal protections. If the original commenter meant something like "ideal free market" I imagine they would use those words instead of refering specifically to capitalism's free markets. The real system known as capitalism would collapse immediately if we did away with the special legal protections given to corporations (chief amongst them being limited liability), so I think it's a pretty fair assessment to understand these to be inherent to capitalism, even in its most libertarian possible interpretation. Another important distinction is that there are various ways of theorising free markets which may not be compatible with capitalism either.
    - mypastself 4y ago
      They were referring to the “idea of a libertarian free market”. Such an idea would not include limited liability for corporations protected by law. The government might enforce observing contracts agreed upon by all parties, some of which may contain limited liability for individuals or organizations. But LLC in itself would not be a legal category intended to protect corporations.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        The idea that you can at all limit your liabilities by contract is an artifice that originates in the idea of the limited liability corporation. You are not contractually allowed as an individual to limit your liabilities by mutual agreement in general because a great many rights and claims cannot be alienated by contract. The vast majority of capitalists and libertarians have no pretence of being able to get rid of the LLC. The rest have an incoherent understanding of the situation, where you could somehow do it by mutual agreement while still having inalienable rights be a thing. Legal personhood is the only way to deal with that because you can then redirect claims and rights instead of trying to alienate them. So you have to choose two between inalienable rights and claims, not having legal personhood, and being able to limit liability by agreement. A simple example would be an organization which caused a personal injury by negligence. You can't alienate your right to life and health, so you can't possibly make a contractual agreement to limit such liability. If you remove the possibility to limit such liability, then who in their right mind could, for example, invest or agree to work in a hospital? How about a mine? So the question is inevitable, and it turns out that legal privileges for groups that organise capital are necessary for practical capitalism. In the real world of course no libertarian can articulate a coherent way of either completely doing away with the concept of limiting liability or a way to do so without legal personhood and without allowing people to sign away their rights, which is why serious opposition to the concept is exceedingly fringe amongst libertarians.
        mypastself 4y ago
        I have to admit I don’t follow the full extent of your argument, not necessarily through your fault. > You can't alienate your right to life and health, so you can't possibly make a contractual agreement to limit such liability. Do you mean that those rights would be protected by law even in a libertarian society, so they couldn’t be defined by contracts? I don’t think many libertarians believe liability should be truly unlimited, at least not to the extent where it would be infringing on certain individual rights. Even so, in the scenario where no one wants to enter into a contract with a company because it doesn’t provide certain protections, the company would have no choice but to either change the clause, or lose the employee to a competitor. Replace employee with a group of employees organized into a union and you could have a similar outcome, all without a significant legal framework in place. But again, I might be misunderstanding your line of reasoning.

There can be no such thing as a real free market. It's an inherently contradictory concept because it necessarily relies on a government strong enough to impose a private property rights regime but at the same time act against its own interests.

mypastself 4y ago
The initial argument was about whether or not unions could be considered a part of a true free market, and whether champions of capitalism should support their existence. Your argument is that a free market cannot exist at all, which is not exactly what the discussion is about.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  The capitalist free market is something that would reasonably he understood as free markets as they exist in the real system called capitalism under which coeporations have special legal protections. If the original commenter meant something like "ideal free market" I imagine they would use those words instead of refering specifically to capitalism's free markets. The real system known as capitalism would collapse immediately if we did away with the special legal protections given to corporations (chief amongst them being limited liability), so I think it's a pretty fair assessment to understand these to be inherent to capitalism, even in its most libertarian possible interpretation. Another important distinction is that there are various ways of theorising free markets which may not be compatible with capitalism either.
  - mypastself 4y ago
    They were referring to the “idea of a libertarian free market”. Such an idea would not include limited liability for corporations protected by law. The government might enforce observing contracts agreed upon by all parties, some of which may contain limited liability for individuals or organizations. But LLC in itself would not be a legal category intended to protect corporations.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      The idea that you can at all limit your liabilities by contract is an artifice that originates in the idea of the limited liability corporation. You are not contractually allowed as an individual to limit your liabilities by mutual agreement in general because a great many rights and claims cannot be alienated by contract. The vast majority of capitalists and libertarians have no pretence of being able to get rid of the LLC. The rest have an incoherent understanding of the situation, where you could somehow do it by mutual agreement while still having inalienable rights be a thing. Legal personhood is the only way to deal with that because you can then redirect claims and rights instead of trying to alienate them. So you have to choose two between inalienable rights and claims, not having legal personhood, and being able to limit liability by agreement. A simple example would be an organization which caused a personal injury by negligence. You can't alienate your right to life and health, so you can't possibly make a contractual agreement to limit such liability. If you remove the possibility to limit such liability, then who in their right mind could, for example, invest or agree to work in a hospital? How about a mine? So the question is inevitable, and it turns out that legal privileges for groups that organise capital are necessary for practical capitalism. In the real world of course no libertarian can articulate a coherent way of either completely doing away with the concept of limiting liability or a way to do so without legal personhood and without allowing people to sign away their rights, which is why serious opposition to the concept is exceedingly fringe amongst libertarians.
      - mypastself 4y ago
        I have to admit I don’t follow the full extent of your argument, not necessarily through your fault. > You can't alienate your right to life and health, so you can't possibly make a contractual agreement to limit such liability. Do you mean that those rights would be protected by law even in a libertarian society, so they couldn’t be defined by contracts? I don’t think many libertarians believe liability should be truly unlimited, at least not to the extent where it would be infringing on certain individual rights. Even so, in the scenario where no one wants to enter into a contract with a company because it doesn’t provide certain protections, the company would have no choice but to either change the clause, or lose the employee to a competitor. Replace employee with a group of employees organized into a union and you could have a similar outcome, all without a significant legal framework in place. But again, I might be misunderstanding your line of reasoning.