So you think there should be laws to prevent people from behaving in a shortsighted way? Some people's utility function is simply short-term oriented. I speak

So you think there should be laws to prevent people from behaving in a shortsighted way? Some people's utility function is simply short-term oriented. I speak from experience -- I had the fried chicken (at a variety of different NYC gastro pubs) four times in the past month. Definitely short-sighted and foolish for my health and BMI. Similarly, doing a startup is not rational. Most fail and the expected returns are worse than if the money were invested in an index fund. Unless you advocate some kind of police state that enforces constraints on aspects of peoples' utility function that most of us happily enjoy choosing, I don't think you'll be able to achieve the kind of world you envision (corporations or not). Even if we try to "nudge" behavior using subtle approaches, as Thaler and Sunstein advocate, there are practical limits, and a system of laws to enforce "good nudges" gets absurd pretty quickly. I think my argument is supported by Michael Moore's conclusion in Bowling for Columbine. America is a unique and odd place. There is something about America that gives those who are down on their luck the hope to put that last quarter into a slot machine. It's the same thing that leads people to drop out of Harvard or Stanford to do a startup. America's healthcare debacle is just as much a function of our unique psyche, and it's inseparably linked to some of the greatest aspects of our culture... for example our faith in medical breakthroughs and the optimism that fosters, our desire to fight mortality and disease through science, and our odd secular crutch of granting doctors too much authority.