David B. Shemano wrote:
Instead of directly responding to your question -- I am sure you are reasonably familiar with libertarian arguments. Why do you think that they do not agree with you that the restrictions imposed by corporations are more severe than those imposed by government?
The ones I know support some version of the Alchian and Demsetz notion that a corporation is simply a "nexus of contracts" organized into a production team. I try to imagine how Marx's piercing wit would have reflected on this passage: [The firm] has no power of fiat, no authority, no disciplinary action any different in the slightest degree from ordinary market contracting between any two people. [In the case of a contract between me and you,] I can "punish" you only by withholding future business or by seeking redress in the courts for any failure to honor our exchange agreement. That is exactly all that any employer can do. He can fire or sue, just as I can fire my grocer by stopping purchases from him or sue him for delivering faulty products. What then is the content of the presumed power to manage and assign workers to various tasks? Exactly the same as one little consumer's power to manage and assign his grocer to various tasks. The single consumer can assign his grocer to the task of obtaining whatever the customer can induce the grocer to provide at a price acceptable to both parties. That is precisely all that an employer can do to an employee. To speak of managing, directing, or assigning workers to various tasks is a deceptive way of noting that the employer continually is involved in renegotiation of contracts on terms that must be acceptable to both parties. Telling an employee to type this letter rather than to file that document is like my telling a grocer to sell me this brand of tuna rather than that brand of bread.
