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They can make investments, sue, go bankrupt, have bank accounts, like a person, in their own name instead of the owner.
by BiteCode_dev 2y ago
They can make investments, sue, go bankrupt, have bank accounts, like a person, in their own name instead of the owner.
- robertlagrant 2y agoCan you explain why that matters? Yes a company can have a bank account. A company also has a name, like a person. An age, like a person. But what does that matter?
- oersted 2y agoCertain laws apply to any person, which includes companies. A company can own things like you own things, and has similar protections. A company is accountable to its promises (contracts, fraud...), like you would be, although punishments might be different. It's like a union type: `type Person = Human | Company`. Or like inheritance: `class Human(Person)`, `class Company(Person)`. Or a typeclass/trait/interface... It allows you to reuse many laws for both humans and companies, without having to specify them or define special cases every time it is mentioned.
- robertlagrant 2y agoSorry, again I don't understand why this matters.
- oersted 2y agoI think the point of OP was that in many ways companies have many of the same rights and privileges as individuals, but cannot be punished in the same ways.
- robertlagrant 2y agoI don't really understand that as a point, though. What would punishing a company look like? Why wouldn't we want to figure out how to punish (or hold accountable) individuals, instead of focusing on the fact that we can't punish legal entities? We can't punish countries either, even though they can also do these things. We can only punish people. So what?
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoActually, it's the same point. We are currently trying to punish entities (with fines), and it's ineffective. We should move back to punishing people more, and moving back the responsibility to people, instead of pretending companies are people, and therefore responsible.
- robertlagrant 2y agoBut it's such a strange angle. Should we stop companies having bank accounts in order to do that? Who cares if they have a bank account?
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoQuite the opposite, since they have bank accounts, let's: - Make them more liable. - Make the people behind them more liable. - Give companies limitations. What would be the equivalent of jail for a company ? Unable to sale for x years ? How long a company should be able to exist ? Right now there is way too much power and shielding at the same time.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> What would be the equivalent of jail for a company ? Unable to sale for x years ? How long a company should be able to exist ? If they can't sell then they don't have money, and everyone is fired. Is that what you mean? Why are you trying to make companies into physical people who can be punished separately to their employees/shareholders, instead of thinking of the actual outcome you want and coming up with something to achieve that?
- oersted 2y agoYou can definitely punish countries as an independent entity: with trading sanctions, refusal to give in on certain diplomatic compromises, or different degrees of military retaliation. Same with companies: mostly fines, but also limits on how they can operate, additional oversight... Of course, the consequences trickle down to people, but these punishments are not meant to target any given individual, and if the individuals in charge change, the ones that leave don't necessarily carry the punishment with them. This makes sense, legal entities like companies are guided by incentives. And it sometimes makes more sense to punish the legal entity to change its behaviour, by imposing disincentives, rather than punishing whichever people are running it at the time. For example, people within a company might pressure an individual to commit a crime, because even if that individual might get punished, the company may benefit as a whole. But if the company's (financial) survival is at stake, everyone is more likely to collaborate to prevent that situation, including the shareholders, if the punishments are big enough. The point here is, that for issues like negligence and fraud, the current punishments are not significant enough to act as a real deterrent. The punishment on the companies is too lenient (they can absorb the fines, they are rarely an existential threat), and the punishment on the individuals responsible is too lenient (difficult to attribute culpability, limited liability...). We do want to figure out how to hold individuals more accountable, as you said, we are just having a conversation about why it works like that right now and what could be changed to improve it.
- anticensor 2y agoCompanies have fewer rights and less responsibility overall actually.
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoWe moved the power from the human to something we said is "human enough" to have them. But this thing is a concept, it doesn't exist. It can't die. It can change forms until it doesn't pay taxes. It can't experience pain or go to prison. Basically, we gave the power to the company without the responsibilities to the humans behind it because there is less consequences, less skin in the game.
- robertlagrant 2y agoSorry - we moved what power?
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoThe power of having a bank account, of moving funds around, of signing contracts, etc. Before that, companies had to have everything attached to a human, not the company. So the human was responsible. You are so used to it that you think it's normal, but it's not. It's a concept we have created: that companies can act in their own name, like they are actually something concrete. But when we did that, we failed to give companies expiration date, something like inheritance tax, the equivalent of prison and so forth. Something that doesn't exist, a concept, enjoy many things a concrete human can do, but won't pay nearly the same consequences. In fact, it's sometimes in the title: limited liability company. It's by design. And of course, it allowed humans to do a lot of things without risking to lose all their life if they failed. But we went to far and now, we have companies that can enjoy all those benefits but with much less limitations than the humans counterpart. It makes them too powerful.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> The power of having a bank account, of moving funds around, of signing contracts, etc. I don't think companies can sign contracts. What is the power of having a bank account and moving funds around? It's still people deciding to do this, and doing it, just under a group name. What power? > Something that doesn't exist, a concept, enjoy many things a concrete human can do, but won't pay nearly the same consequences People are still doing it. You seem to have totally mis-framed this. If you say "people can get away with doing things inside a company" you'd have a point, perhaps, but you're talking as though companies are sentient.