ATDTDA (5): The American Corporation

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Paul Mackin noted: 
> 3. As to the 14th amendment (equal protection under the law) , the
> obvious presumption would be that if it's illegal to deny protection
> to natural persons for reasons of race, color or creed, it would be
> problematic to deny protection to groups a such people.
>

sounds reasonable enough.  the crux is I guess in
weighing those rights when they conflict with rights
of natural people...since the people in the corporation
have limited liability, and natural people don't,
wouldn't that form the basis of some kind of distinction?

> 4. To go along with the joke, if common sense (with a little marginal
> help from the 14th amendment) conspired to confer civil liberties
> upon synthetic persons known as corporations, it is also true these
> rights since the late 19th Century have been gradually eroded away by
> federal law (Sherman Antitrust Act, etc, etc.) though not nearly
> enough so in the opinion of most p-listers.
>

not all...I've been impressed enough with the Austrians
to admit that government's record in restraining
corporations hasn't been perfect...yet 
if we are playing "tiddlywinks with manhole
covers" (ie, 'let's just say there's no government')
what _would_ restrain corporations
from demonstrable rapine? - endless re-enactments
of things that have already really happened:
companies set up just to defraud widows and orphans,
slavery, rapacious monopolies? 
- tort law, product liability, monopoly regulation
may not be perfect...personally I think the only
thing that really works is the underlying ethos
that drives the enactment of these reforms...value
systems with a humanistic focus...which ought to include
some outrage when people use the shield of "limited 
liability" to hurt others.
Jay Gould noted that he could pay half the population
to beat up the other half when they agitated for
decent pay...is this the summum bonum of capitalist ethics?