Please let me know what people think about this argument. It's more philosophical than what I usually write, because frankly I couldn't really think of any other good points to make. One other novel argument did occur to me -- that the First Amendment protects "freedom of assembly" and the right to "petition government for redress of grievances", and does not say "except when people assemble in the form of a corporation" -- but I suspect this would be seen as something of a stretch.
You don't hit unions hard enough in this one Starchild...make it less philosophical and get in some punches on the ideology of those who are drafting this.
I did mention unions in the original argument, but do you think there is something further that should be said in that regard? Remember that making this an issue of going after unions will make us sound more like Republicans and probably not help us get votes in SF.
please remind folks that it is politicians who wrote the laws under which corporations are created. The ideas that support the institution of the corporation are similar to those that support the state, that the group is more than the individuals within it. Until individual responsibility is restored as the foundation of our social order , we will be trampled by the two most unaccountable institutions that rule over us, the bureaucrats and the corporations.
As for softpedalling the unions, forget it, we are never going to reach pro union folks. It's a religion.
You might want to say that without organized opposition , there is no voice at the table to keep the relatively wealthy unions from eating up the entire budget, starving out every other city service, . Actually with a little googling you might find Wayn roots, rather well documented and presented piece on why retired union workers are the real one percent. The umbers are astounding . At current interest rates and life expectancies, a retired union worker collecting 50k a year in inflation adjusted dollars plus life benefits has a package worth millions. It's unfair to ask the poor , elderly, and sick san franciscans to have no voice in opposing these million aires.
I don't disagree with what you say here (although I have no interest in quoting W.A.R. in any appeal to voters), but I don't see how to work this kind of material into the argument. Corporate money in politics isn't working to oppose union sweetheart deals at the expense of the taxpayers that I'm aware of. Those deals don't directly affect corporations.
I really don't agree with this at all. Corporations are so dominant in the
economy because they are so productive in creating goods and services that
people want to buy and jobs that people want to hold. If corporations (limited
liability companies) were so destructive, how could they have become so
dominant.
This country has become economically great precisely because investors could
invest in businesses without fear of losing everything they had, if the company
went belly up. A modern economy like the US' is inconceivable without
corporations.
Leslie, I used to agree with you on this, but like everything else, once one thinks it through, liberty with responsibility is the answer.
Corporations are a coerced legal structure. Something similar might appear in an anarco capitalist economy, but there is no way of knowing what the market would produce absent legal coercion.
One of the big advantages the german economy has is that they are not coerced to abandon private companies and force them onto public regulated exchanges. In the Us, once one has over five hundred shareholders , one is forced to go public, iread that in googled, the storyy of google. The founders did not want to go public.
The stock market is a disgrace.It is largely a system for systemic fraud. The SEC needs desperately to be eliminated and caveat emptor rule the market.
The market would develop it's own way to restore public confidence.
You , once engaged in studying this matter, will learn that greatest capitalist institutions were formed on the partnership model. all the investment banks on Wall Street were originally partnerships with full liability. LLoyds of London was the same.
I bet you can find a lot of stuff on Mises or Lew Rockwell on this very important topic.
Like a stopped clock, sometimes the lefty commies get it right, as difficult as that is to swallow. And as usual , the Republicans get it terribly wrong.
