Gil Hamilton wrote:
> >yes, that is what I'm saying. see, by putting your money into a
> >corporation, you also put it into trust in your government. the local
> >legal system provides the ground rules for your transaction. it can
> >change them. you do NOT have a natural right that says the rules may not
> >change.
>
> The fact that businesses have to abide governmental regulation
doesn't
> establish them as purely artificial government-established entities. After
> all, individuals too have to live with laws established by the regimes under
> which they live. Would you argue that individuals have no natural rights,
> only those given to them by the benevolent governmental entities that
> "provide the ground rules" under which they're forced to live?
no, I would definitely NOT argue that last point. however, corporations
are established entirely WITHIN the framework of the legal system. it is
the legal system that defines what exacatly a corporation is, for
example that M$ is one, but the mafia is not. humans are not created
inside the legal system.
humans: natural entity
group of humans: natural entity
ganging-up-to-do-somethin: natural activity
taxpayer: artificial entity
corporation: artificial entity
doing-a-takeover-via-stock-swapping: artificial activity
is that a better explanation?
> Let's say we did "do away with corporations". I understand this to mean
> that we would be doing away with *governmental laws* regarding the operation
> of corporations. This would not imply doing away with the businesses they
> represent, as their investors would still wish to make a profit. It is this
> desire to form associations for the purpose of engaging in commerce that I
> call a business, and it is this notion of business that retains the rights
> of its owners.
I agree almost completely. ganging up to do something (like making
profit) is not artificial. but the regulations around this activity, the
ones that say you have to file form 2144 in triplicate to found the
business, or that you have to make a yearly fiscal report, or that you
are business of type A and so on are artificial.
being a group of guys who want to make money is not artificial. being a
publicly traded company is. the one would survive to total elimination
of law, society as we know it and sliced bread, the other one would not.
> In summary, I would agree that the details by which the modern corporation
> is run are supplied by government/legal system. However, the fundamental
> right to voluntarily enter into an association with other investors and form
> a business is, I would argue, a natural one.
I agree, with the addition that it is also the law that defines how the
association and business run. without the law, every association and
every business would have to carve out it's own rules.
