JCFolsom:It's not just a whole, it's taken to be a person, and they accrue the benefits as such. Let them suffer the consequences of it, too.
AFAICT the whole 'corporate personhood' or 'legal entity' status was a direct result of various local and state governments making willy-nilly arbitrary rules and laws against a corporation who did business within their borders. Think Folsom County making a law that all international corporations have to pay 10% of their income to the church while locally owned businesses were immune to the ruling.
Not judging the morality of this but just stating what I believe is the source of this policy.
JCFolsom:How will you do it without forcefully removing some people's property rights? Only by stealing land have we ever managed to get cross-continental railroads or interstates.
*cough*Northern Pacific*cough*
JCFolsom: nskinsella:I am not sure exactly what you are trying to say. The question is why should shareholders be liable for the torts of others? Any more than others with diffuse and distant influence over the company's policies and actions? I don't think customers, creditors, or even shareholders have any claims against those that damage the corporation. What are you talking about? nskinsella:If employee A harms a third party, A is surely liable (as he is now under current law). To hold any other person or entity (such as his employer) responsible for A's torts requires some other rationale. The common law doctrine of respondeat superior says the employer is vicariously liable for the torts committed by his employees during the scope of their employment. I have yet to see even this doctrine justified under libertarian theory, though perhaps it can be. But this only means the employer, or maybe the supervisors/managers, are liable also. Directors too? I doubt it, in most cases. Shareholders? No. Creditors? Not usually. Customers, suppliers, contractors? Probably not, usually. The connection is too tenuous. A person is the ultimate rightful controller of that which that person owns. That is the definition of ownership.
nskinsella:I am not sure exactly what you are trying to say. The question is why should shareholders be liable for the torts of others? Any more than others with diffuse and distant influence over the company's policies and actions? I don't think customers, creditors, or even shareholders have any claims against those that damage the corporation. What are you talking about?
nskinsella:If employee A harms a third party, A is surely liable (as he is now under current law). To hold any other person or entity (such as his employer) responsible for A's torts requires some other rationale. The common law doctrine of respondeat superior says the employer is vicariously liable for the torts committed by his employees during the scope of their employment. I have yet to see even this doctrine justified under libertarian theory, though perhaps it can be. But this only means the employer, or maybe the supervisors/managers, are liable also. Directors too? I doubt it, in most cases. Shareholders? No. Creditors? Not usually. Customers, suppliers, contractors? Probably not, usually. The connection is too tenuous.
A person is the ultimate rightful controller of that which that person owns. That is the definition of ownership.
Ownership means the right to control a resource. If you are a Google shareholder, does that give you the right to enter their office building? No. You don't have the (direct) right of control. The officers, hired by the directors (who are elected by shareholders) themselves hire managers, who have direct control over the corporation's resources. This is nothing more than a divided type of control. Just because the shareholder is called "the owner" by the state's classifications is meaningless. You could also call a creditor "the owner" because they have a right to be repaid out of corporate assets. You could call the managers "the owner". The point is not what label the state slaps on it. The point is to find out who is responsible for the tort of an employee. To do this, you need a careful, Austrian-informed, libertarian-compatible theory of causation--and a careful application of it to a given situation. The anti-corporate zealots never even attempt this.
They are responsible for injuries caused by the property, whether it is they that directly employ/control it or their agents.
Why is this? If my tree falls on you, why is it my fault? Why don't you watch where you're going? I don't think it's obvious that an owner is resonsible for damage "his property causes." In fact, property does not cause damage in the legal sense. Only people cause damage--by their actions. If my tree falls on you, the question is: Did I damage you, using my tree as the means? Or did you just have bad luck or were negligent yourself? Etc. Again, one needs a coherent and well-developed theory of causal responsibility to even begin to address these issues.
Putting layers of employees between yourself and your property does not diminish your responsibility.
Asserting that owners are responsible for harm "caused by" their property is just that--an unsupported assertion. And accepting the state's classification of the stockholder as an "owner" is no way to make a libertarian argument.
The tenuousness of your control is no one's doing but your own; it is foolish to take ownership of, thus responsibility for, something you can't actually control.
In any event--if the FedEx truck driver negligently harms someone, it is not property that causes the harm (the truck might even be owned by the driver); it is the action by the driver. Why is a person A who bought a share of stock for $20 from person B, liable for torts committed by a negligent driver employed by the company in which A owns stock? You just keep assuming this. Why is he responsible. Does he own the driver?
What is silly is the idea that the modern model of massive, centralized production could actually survive in an environment where transportation costs are not subsidized and land cannot be seized "for the public good". What is silly is thinking that a person could actually afford the risk of allowing such remote agency to handle his property if he is rightly held fully responsible for abuses or negligence with it. There are a lot of other silly things about the idea that modern, massive corporations, or anything like them, could survive without intense partnership with the powers of government, but it's late and I'm tired.
Sure, transportation costs should not be subsidized and eminent domain etc. is unlibertarian. Surely the way an economy is arranged would be different in some ways absent the state. This in no wise means that production would all be local. This is a silly superstition.
Stephan Kinsella [email protected] www.StephanKinsella.com
nskinsella:Ownership means the right to control a resource. If you are a Google shareholder, does that give you the right to enter their office building? No. You don't have the (direct) right of control.
nskinsella:Just because the shareholder is called "the owner" by the state's classifications is meaningless.
nskinsella:Asserting that owners are responsible for harm "caused by" their property is just that--an unsupported assertion. And accepting the state's classification of the stockholder as an "owner" is no way to make a libertarian argument.
Ah, so then, we agree, ownership of shares does not actually constitute ownership of the assets, and as such, the destruction of those assets are not the destruction of your assets, and you have no claim against the vandal.
nskinsella: They are responsible for injuries caused by the property, whether it is they that directly employ/control it or their agents. Why is this? If my tree falls on you, why is it my fault? Why don't you watch where you're going? I don't think it's obvious that an owner is resonsible for damage "his property causes." In fact, property does not cause damage in the legal sense. Only people cause damage--by their actions. If my tree falls on you, the question is: Did I damage you, using my tree as the means? Or did you just have bad luck or were negligent yourself? Etc. Again, one needs a coherent and well-developed theory of causal responsibility to even begin to address these issues.
If you read the last part of the very sentence you quoted, it says "whether it is they that directly employ/control it or their agents". Just to make it perfectly clear, I mean only in cases of abuse or negligence should any monetary damages be expected. If you are walking on my property, even with my permission, and walk into an unconcealed pit, that's your clumsy butt's fault.
nskinsella:In any event--if the FedEx truck driver negligently harms someone, it is not property that causes the harm (the truck might even be owned by the driver); it is the action by the driver. Why is a person A who bought a share of stock for $20 from person B, liable for torts committed by a negligent driver employed by the company in which A owns stock? You just keep assuming this. Why is he responsible. Does he own the driver?
If you really look at my argument, it is actually my assertion that he is not responsible, because he has no right of control. The driver should be able to drive off with his FedEx truck and keep it. The shareholders are not responsible for it, and have no claim to it.
nskinsella:Sure, transportation costs should not be subsidized and eminent domain etc. is unlibertarian. Surely the way an economy is arranged would be different in some ways absent the state. This in no wise means that production would all be local. This is a silly superstition.
What other method do you propose for transportation so cheap that local, small-scale production will be more expensive than distant, massive production? If it costs you $0.10 to build a widget but $1.00 to get it to your customer, but a local producer can build it for $1.00 with negligible transportation costs, people will favor the local producer. He will also have the advantage of being better-known, more trusted, more able to be held accountable for defects.
Beyond that, I find it dubious that the massive layers of bureaucracy and organization in large corporations, with those who produce the least often making the most money, should be seen as assuredly more efficient than small-scale production. Indeed, much evidence is to the contrary.
nskinsella:Why is this? If my tree falls on you, why is it my fault? Why don't you watch where you're going? I don't think it's obvious that an owner is resonsible for damage "his property causes." In fact, property does not cause damage in the legal sense. Only people cause damage--by their actions. If my tree falls on you, the question is: Did I damage you, using my tree as the means? Or did you just have bad luck or were negligent yourself? Etc. Again, one needs a coherent and well-developed theory of causal responsibility to even begin to address these issues.
I don't think that's quite correct.
If I were to park my big rig on a hill and use a bag of sugar to keep it from rolling into the school it wouldn't be my fault all those kids were killed, it was the fault of the ants who 'stole' all my sugar. I didn't kill all those kids using my truck as the means, it was just bad luck that the ants were hungry today.
I don't think a tree has ever 'just fallen' in the history of the world, there is always some external force that causes it. If one doesn't 'properly secure' their tree and it falls over into the neighbor's house you just can't blame the wind or an 'act of god' for the damages and chalk it up to 'bad luck' but the person who is ultimately responsible for the 'actions' of the tree which would be the owner of the tree is at fault.
Don't like it, cut it down and be done with it.
The whole right to not have your property 'aggressed' against by the actions (or inactions) of others.
JCFolsom:Beyond that, I find it dubious that the massive layers of bureaucracy and organization in large corporations, with those who produce the least often making the most money, should be seen as assuredly more efficient than small-scale production. Indeed, much evidence is to the contrary.
Well, yeah, that goes without saying.
Where your argument goes awry is equating all corporate activity to corporatism which is a pretty weak strawman.
It makes no sense using violence to acheive libertarian aims when violence is exactly what we advocate getting rid of. The leftists using violence to acheive their ends makes far more sense because their ends is not liberty, but equality.
It's silly to attack anything that has benefitted from the state, because where is the line drawn? Is it correct to assassinate workers of the state? How about corporations that have benefitted from state intereference in the market? Or is the line drawn at smashing up property? How about welfare recipients? It may just be that there are ordinary citizens that have benefitted from the state unknowingly.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
nskinsella: Sure, transportation costs should not be subsidized and eminent domain etc. is unlibertarian. Surely the way an economy is arranged would be different in some ways absent the state. This in no wise means that production would all be local. This is a silly superstition.
And even if the state disappeared in a puff of logic tomorrow morning, we'd be left with all the roads and so on that the state built. The lefties seem to think they should be destroyed and then they get to decide how things would have been if the state had never existed, and implement that instead. Crazy.
Anonymous Coward: I don't think that's quite correct. If I were to park my big rig on a hill and use a bag of sugar to keep it from rolling into the school it wouldn't be my fault all those kids were killed, it was the fault of the ants who 'stole' all my sugar. I didn't kill all those kids using my truck as the means, it was just bad luck that the ants were hungry today. I don't think a tree has ever 'just fallen' in the history of the world, there is always some external force that causes it. If one doesn't 'properly secure' their tree and it falls over into the neighbor's house you just can't blame the wind or an 'act of god' for the damages and chalk it up to 'bad luck' but the person who is ultimately responsible for the 'actions' of the tree which would be the owner of the tree is at fault.
You can reasonably foresee that using a bag of sugar to keep a truck from rolling downhill is liable to fail. If you have some reason to expect the tree to fall, you should secure it, but under normal circumstances you don't have any reason to expect trees to fall.
Paul:And even if the state disappeared in a puff of logic tomorrow morning, we'd be left with all the roads and so on that the state built. The lefties seem to think they should be destroyed and then they get to decide how things would have been if the state had never existed, and implement that instead. Crazy.
Well, right, but do the roads become commons, or are they claimed by individual owners? If it is the former, good luck getting a group of disparate people to agree on who should maintain it, especially since the state, which currently compels taxes, can't seem to keep them repaired. If it's the latter, it is near-inconceivable that a road of any great length will stay intact.
JCFolsom:Well, right, but do the roads become commons, or are they claimed by individual owners?
If an individual could prove that part of the land on which the road was built was taken by eminent domain, wouldn't he have the most legitimate claim?
JCFolsom: Paul:And even if the state disappeared in a puff of logic tomorrow morning, we'd be left with all the roads and so on that the state built. The lefties seem to think they should be destroyed and then they get to decide how things would have been if the state had never existed, and implement that instead. Crazy. Well, right, but do the roads become commons, or are they claimed by individual owners? If it is the former, good luck getting a group of disparate people to agree on who should maintain it, especially since the state, which currently compels taxes, can't seem to keep them repaired. If it's the latter, it is near-inconceivable that a road of any great length will stay intact.
I see two issues here. First are corporations legitimate targets of violence in a revolution? As I answered before JC is correct that corporations are legitimate targets. Imagine the most obvious example of the defense contractor for the governement. During a revolution the factory manufacturing the means of your oppression is a legtimate target. It would not seem realistic that all corporations would be legtimate targets as it is relevant the degree the corporation is a tool of the state's coercion. Everyone who has some intereaction with the state should not be assumed to be an enemy of freedom.
The second issue is would groups of people form entities like corporations without state intervention. The answer is clearly yes and at the very least I can see no reason why it should be prohibited with violence in a free society. There are lots of advantages to this type of entity irrespective of the state's protection. The question for you JC is would entities like business groups/corporations in a free society be attacked by you?
Most roads would go to HOAs. I don't see the problem in maintaining them. Some would be bought up by corporations, and others would fall into utter disuse, because they'd be unnecessary.
I'm curious, how many of you have read Kinsella's paper on causality? Or his work on the corporation? Because what he's arguing on here stems from these works, and it made a lot more sense to me once I read his papers on the matter. Macy's, of all corporations, hardly seems a fair target to me; what has it done wrong? Availed itself of state services? Well who doesn't? Is Macy's a firm that clamours for intervention? If not, why is it a legitimate target? It's not Blackwater. Otherwise, anyone who avails themselves of the state's "benefits" is a legitimate target, and what we have is a war of all against all. Specific corporations might be legitimate targets. Not all.
As for dealing with a firm that has Inc or Ltd. in its name, this is a clear sign that the firm is a LLC., so there's really no excuse in this case to ignore its warning that it is a limited liability corporation. Don't do business with an LLC. if you disapprove of it.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
GilesStratton:It makes no sense using violence to acheive libertarian aims when violence is exactly what we advocate getting rid of.
I disagree, there are many reasons why violence would persist in a libertarian society. One could call cutting down a tree violence. What we are against is using aggressive force against a person or their property. What I am trying to establish is that corporate assets are the property of no person, and so are available for claiming by anyone who comes along and does so.
Maxliberty:The second issue is would groups of people form entities like corporations without state intervention. The answer is clearly yes and at the very least I can see no reason why it should be prohibited with violence in a free society. There are lots of advantages to this type of entity irrespective of the state's protection. The question for you JC is would entities like business groups/corporations in a free society be attacked by you?
No, they would not be. Indeed, I don't attack them now! The time is not right. An entity that would be like a corporation to whatever degree is sustainable in a truly free society would not be attacked, because direct ties of ownership would be maintained between the assets and shareholders.
JCFolsom: GilesStratton:It makes no sense using violence to acheive libertarian aims when violence is exactly what we advocate getting rid of. What we are against is using aggressive force against a person or their property.
What we are against is using aggressive force against a person or their property.
I actually mean aggression, I thought that was clear, sorry if it wasn't.
Jon Irenicus:Most roads would go to HOAs.
Why? Why don't I just get the patch of road in front of my house? What if I don't wanna join yer darn HOA?
Jon Irenicus:I'm curious, how many of you have read Kinsella's paper on causality? Or his work on the corporation?
I've looked at his work on the corporation. He referenced it earlier in the discussion, and if you look through my previous posts, some of the points I've disputed come directly from that work.
Jon Irenicus:Because what he's arguing on here stems from these works, and it made a lot more sense to me once I read his papers on the matter. Macy's, of all corporations, hardly seems a fair target to me; what has it done wrong? Availed itself of state services? Well who doesn't? Is Macy's a firm that clamours for intervention? If not, why is it a legitimate target? It's not Blackwater. Otherwise, anyone who avails themselves of the state's "benefits" is a legitimate target, and what we have is a war of all against all. Specific corporations might be legitimate targets. Not all.
Straw men. People keep trying to hit me on this, and it isn't the point. The point is NOT whether we have a good motive to attack Macy's, for instance, but whether attacking Macy's assets is actually aggression against a person. I maintain that it is not. That is the whole of my argument. To my mind, your argument is equivalent to arguing whether or not I should break a dead twig on the ground.
Jon Irenicus:As for dealing with a firm that has Inc or Ltd. in its name, this is a clear sign that the firm is a LLC., so there's really no excuse in this case to ignore its warning that it is a limited liability corporation. Don't do business with an LLC. if you disapprove of it.
Who made you the High Holy Norm-Declarer for society?
GilesStratton:I actually mean aggression, I thought that was clear, sorry if it wasn't.
Ah, and what I actually mean is that attacking Macy's corporate assets is aggression against nobody's property, and so is not what is forbidden in Libertarian philosophy. The act is without inherent moral content.
Paul: Anonymous Coward: I don't think that's quite correct. If I were to park my big rig on a hill and use a bag of sugar to keep it from rolling into the school it wouldn't be my fault all those kids were killed, it was the fault of the ants who 'stole' all my sugar. I didn't kill all those kids using my truck as the means, it was just bad luck that the ants were hungry today. I don't think a tree has ever 'just fallen' in the history of the world, there is always some external force that causes it. If one doesn't 'properly secure' their tree and it falls over into the neighbor's house you just can't blame the wind or an 'act of god' for the damages and chalk it up to 'bad luck' but the person who is ultimately responsible for the 'actions' of the tree which would be the owner of the tree is at fault. You can reasonably foresee that using a bag of sugar to keep a truck from rolling downhill is liable to fail. If you have some reason to expect the tree to fall, you should secure it, but under normal circumstances you don't have any reason to expect trees to fall.
Nope, no intent, no crime in the case of the truck running into the school.
But aggression must be intentional—otherwise, there is no reason toattribute it to a particular human actor instead of an impersonal natural force.For person A to be the cause of B’s death, B must have died as the result of aseries of events initiated by A’s willful action. If, on the other hand, B dies asthe result of a thoroughly deterministic process unconnected with any willfulaction, then there is no one to punish.
Jon Irenicus: Most roads would go to HOAs. I don't see the problem in maintaining them. Some would be bought up by corporations, and others would fall into utter disuse, because they'd be unnecessary. I'm curious, how many of you have read Kinsella's paper on causality? Or his work on the corporation? Because what he's arguing on here stems from these works, and it made a lot more sense to me once I read his papers on the matter. Macy's, of all corporations, hardly seems a fair target to me; what has it done wrong? Availed itself of state services? Well who doesn't? Is Macy's a firm that clamours for intervention? If not, why is it a legitimate target? It's not Blackwater. Otherwise, anyone who avails themselves of the state's "benefits" is a legitimate target, and what we have is a war of all against all. Specific corporations might be legitimate targets. Not all. As for dealing with a firm that has Inc or Ltd. in its name, this is a clear sign that the firm is a LLC., so there's really no excuse in this case to ignore its warning that it is a limited liability corporation. Don't do business with an LLC. if you disapprove of it. -Jon
There are some issues related to liabilities with corporations in a free society. For example a trucking company may have accidents with people with whom it has no relationship. In these instances the offended party has not agreed to any limited liability. I think there is just no way to get around these issues and we have to accept that we live amongst other people and that it is impossible for everyone to be in complete agreement regarding what liability will be universally accepted and agreed upon. Most things will be generally accepted but it will not be universal.
I'm sure you could have a patch of road if you wanted it. But I was speaking about what is likely, and by dint of economic efficiency, HOAs are best suited to manage or even own roads.
Who said there are no owners, though? Ownership is simply spread out, as Kinsella elucidated. There's no "fictional" entity owning anything.
Must be the same force that made you that. If you do business with the firm, knowing it's an LLC, what real excuse do you have for protesting its status? Not much, really. No one forced your hand to do business with it.
ML, I don't disagree - but I am referring to patrons of LLCs.
Jon Irenicus:I'm sure you could have a patch of road if you wanted it. But I was speaking about what is likely, and by dint of economic efficiency, HOAs are best suited to manage or even own roads.
Well, maybe so. That being said, the longer a road you try to establish the more likely that you will run into situations where extending the road further becomes quite cost-prohibitive, either because you need to pay extremely high prices to the land owners or even have to build around them. This will impose some severe limits on the area any producer can supply.
Jon Irenicus:Who said there are no owners, though? Ownership is simply spread out, as Kinsella elucidated. There's no "fictional" entity owning anything.
Really? Is that what he said? Let's take a look...
That kinda looks like he's saying that the identification of shareholders as owners is a falsehood. That being the case, who do you think ARE the owners?
Jon Irenicus:If you do business with the firm, knowing it's an LLC, what real excuse do you have for protesting its status? Not much, really. No one forced your hand to do business with it.
How do I know it's an LLC? How do I know what that means? Am I supposed to research the meaning of all the letters people put in their company names? With whom? There's hardly a central authority to establish the meaning of an LLC. Who defines it? You? Shouldn't you be obliged to give me a definition of those terms up front if you plan on holding me to it? Who else is going to?
He said the shareholders cannot be considered the only individuals to which ownership accrues - he didn't say there are no owners or that a fictional entity owns property. Notice, Kinsella is defining ownership as the right to control a resource. So it follows whoever has such a right under a LLC arrangement is effectively an owner - i.e. whomever the shareholders delegate this power to.
And notice I said "knowingly" with regard to dealing with an LLC. All they need to do is to inform their patrons of what this means. Once it's done, and once the patron has gone through with the transaction, they've consented to the LLC's terms.
Jon Irenicus:He said the shareholders cannot be considered the only individuals to which ownership accrues - he didn't say there are no owners or that a fictional entity owns property. Notice, Kinsella is defining ownership as the right to control a resource. So it follows whoever has such a right under a LLC arrangement is effectively an owner - i.e. whomever the shareholders delegate this power to.
It seemed quite clear to me that he was questioning the validity of the definition of shareholders as owners as a government fallacy. What do you have that contradicts that? Not that they were the sole owners, but owners at all, was my impression.
Jon Irenicus:And notice I said "knowingly" with regard to dealing with an LLC. All they need to do is to inform their patrons of what this means. Once it's done, and once the patron has gone through with the transaction, they've consented to the LLC's terms.
Then we have no dispute on this issue. As long as they provide all the information about what the "LLC" in their name means beforehand, they are absolutely entitled to go forward with contracts assuming that's understood and agreed to. What I objected to was the idea, perhaps mistakenly perceived by me, that a person should be bound by the LLC without any further notice than simply the appearance of those letters in a company's name. I can quote what Kinsella said that gave me that impression, if you like.
Yeah, but he never said no one owns the corporation, because that would be ridiculous - nor did he say a fictional entity owns anything. The shareholders merely delegate the right to control its resources. That's what his post explained: the structural breakdown of control within the corporation. Having delegated this power, they also limit their liability (because they are not effectively the decisionmakers, in spite of the legal designation that attaches to them.) Which makes perfect sense. IMO what he was saying was that taking government labels for granted is what causes confusion over this matter.
Jon Irenicus: Yeah, but he never said no one owns the corporation, because that would be ridiculous - nor did he say a fictional entity owns anything. The shareholders merely delegate the right to control its resources. That's what his post explained: the structural breakdown of control within the corporation. Having delegated this power, they also limit their liability (because they are not effectively the decisionmakers, in spite of the legal designation that attaches to them.) Which makes perfect sense. IMO what he was saying was that taking government labels for granted is what causes confusion over this matter. -Jon
Of course, you are right. I simply said we don't have to take the state's classification as holy writ. Ownership--right to control--is divided and spread out. Shareholders are partial owners.
If that is the case, then I fail to see how your definition to delegate control has any ultimate bearing on someone your corporation wrongs. You chose to delegate, and you could choose to cease doing so at any time. Your delegation, in the end, is a risk you were willing to take to spare yourself some hassle, or because you owned something too large to effectively control. Perhaps you have a contract with the manager that he will be responsible for all debts, but, if what you say is true, then if the manager does not have enough money to cover your responsibility, the injured party has every right to go after you. You take the benefit of ownership... you must take responsibility for it too.
Which is it? Do they have ultimate ownership, thus control, and thus responsibility, or not. You have evaded and evaded. Define your terms. Or does ownership have no real meaning?
Evaded? No, I just do not waste time on questions that have already been answered. Does the shareholder exercise full control over the corporation's resources? No. They delegate it. Hence their liability is accordingly limited. We've already been over assenting to the LLC's terms, so I'm not going to reiterate what I said on that. You chose to deal with the LLC knowingly, so you have no right to go after the shareholders if something goes wrong. Where is the problem in this? What exactly is your issue with the corporation structuring control over its resources as it does? Your understanding of ownership is merely simplistic and too black and white. The shareholders merely have a partial right to its resources.
Contractual obligations are not the only obligations possible to a property owner. Damage by abuse or negligence to uncontracted parties is also the owner's responsibility.
JCFolsom: Contractual obligations are not the only obligations possible to a property owner. Damage by abuse or negligence to uncontracted parties is also the owner's responsibility.
And carjacking the Kinko's delivery guy satisfies this how exactly?
The most you are going to manage to prove is that limited liability is a false concept and the shareholders are the true owners and controllers of the corporation which pretty much defeats your 'unowned corporate asset' argument thereby disproving your justification in favor of theft and violence against corporations.
This is what happens when you argue from both sides of an issue.
In general, carjacking someone means holding a gun in the driver's face. That is an aggressive act. You're strawman-building skills improve by the day.
All I'm saying is you can't have it both ways. You can't have ultimate control without also having ultimate responsibility. That does little to change the fact that, in participating in the modern corporate systems, current shareholders disavow personal ownership of corporate assets. It's part of their agreement, don't you see? So, I take them at their word. They don't own it, because they say they don't. Who am I to argue?
JCFolsom:In general, carjacking someone means holding a gun in the driver's face. That is an aggressive act. You're strawman-building skills improve by the day.
So doing a drive-by on the bowling team's property is OK but 'nicely' asking the Kinko's driver to remove himself from the car so you can homestead it isn't? And as you said earlier firebombing the car is a valid form of homesteading.
This whole thread is about justifying violent acts against corporations.
The entire thread is one giant strawman...
Nicely asking the FedEx driver to leave the car would not be an aggressive act; I don't know what you mean by "Nicely". And, once you asked him if he owned the truck, and he said, "No, FedEx does," yes, ethically, it's fine to take it.
A bowler on a team would probably say, "We all own that _______". That's collective ownership. The knowledgable shareholder would say the corporation owns the asset. So, ethically it's fine to break it.
JCFolsom: Nicely asking the FedEx driver to leave the car would not be an aggressive act; I don't know what you mean by "Nicely". And, once you asked him if he owned the truck, and he said, "No, FedEx does," yes, ethically, it's fine to take it. A bowler on a team would probably say, "We all own that _______". That's collective ownership. The knowledgable shareholder would say the corporation owns the asset. So, ethically it's fine to break it.
You have some weird definition of the word "ethical", is all I can say.
JCFolsom:A bowler on a team would probably say, "We all own that _______". That's collective ownership.
To clarify, what I meant here was it is not OK steal or vandalize a piece of property that is owned by more than one actual person. This contrasts with property which is owned by a fictional person.
That is, unless defence or insurance agencies include recognition of LLCs as a term in their contracts. Liability as a matter of tort law still exists, and just because a shareholder is not liable for a criminal action does not mean someone closer to directing the firm's activities isn't. But that isn't important: what is important is that the assets are still owned.