Seeing as how corporate personhood (granted and contrived by the government) shifts liabilities away from from the owners?
This thought has been developing for a while and peaked when I saw a Jeffrey Tucker presentation in which he praised McDonalds.
Rothbard points out that corporations would exist in a free society, as they are simply the pooling of capital. He says limited liability for corporations could also exist through contract: “Corporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, such men would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation …”[33]
Corporations created in this way would not, however, be able to replicate the limit on liabilities arising non-contractually, such as liability in tort for environmental disasters or personal injury, which corporations currently enjoy. Rothbard himself acknowledges that “limited liability for torts is the illegitimate conferring of a special privilege”[39]
Cool, thanks for the reply.
Should they? Shouldn’t they? By what grounds should a person in any community be against big corporations?
I don’t care or see any matter to a corporation being large or small.
I don’t like Mcdonalds’ food very much. I ate 2 cheeseburgers from there this year.
Whatever goes with no guns around.
Further readin:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north408.html
http://blog.mises.org/9084/corporations-and-limited-liability-for-torts/
If you point to liability protected vaccine producing pharma corporations yes.
McDonalds liability… interesting… as an example, let’s image the case of a poisonous burger.
Shouldn’t the person who gave it to you be liable?
You asked and paid for food and received poison, if instead of burger it were water it would be even clear when you pay water and received toxic products in your water.
I don’t care if he is protected by McDonalds or the Mickey Mouse, he has to pay. If he works for McDonalds that’s between him and his bank account, not my problem. Maybe McDonalds will pay his defense or give him the money in case the victim demands compensation. But anything that shields the responsible person from it’s action is wrong. The McDonalds worker is responsible of the food it gives. He is the only agent with the client. If it were a lonely hot-dog seller he would be clearly the accused, but in corporations it would be McDonalds, no, it should be the guy.
What do you think?
(I don’t hate McDonalds, I just find it puzzling that they get fame for giving “cheap food” that is not cheap and that was available before! And a weird food that doesn’t get bad even after days of exposure to the sun… Compare it with Maoz, a vegetarian free-buffet, for 3.8 you can choose all the vegetables you want and repeat! Doesn’t Jeffrey listen to Karen Kwiatkowski)
Not that I’ve got anything against MacDonalds…
But in real life, vicarious liability depends on causation. Was the meat poisoned because head office ordered it from a contaminated supplier, or was it poisoned because the guy behind the counter decided to dip it in arsenic of his own accord? Vicarious liability essentially depends on whether or not the employer approved implicitly or explicitly of the employee’s unlawful actions.
Do you expect the guy behind the counter to test each bit of food he hands you to make sure it isn’t poisoned by his employer, or should liability not, perhaps, be vicarious if it wasn’t actually his fault?
I think one thing that’s frequently lost is that many (ok, probably all) of these companies benefit from state intervention, whether it’s from the current IP regime, zoning laws, direct subsidies, whatever. The ways are numerous.
I think in a real free market there would be many fewer giganto companies (or maybe more co-ops that are larger.)
Corporations? No. The reasons are specified and referenced by Mr. McDuck.
Rent Seekers…absolutely. Non-aggression principle not withstanding, they should be tarred and feathered.