Yes. Why?
The corporation did not come about in an atmosphere consistant with the NAP. Defending institutions that are granted their status as a consequence of violations of the NAP does not follow. A corporation qua corporation is not necessarily an 100% voluntary institution, let alone completely independant from the state. To the extent that the corporation is in patronage with the state, is privileged and protected by the state and came about as a result of intervention by the state, there is absolutely nothing libertarian about it. Stop conflating non-free market entities with a non-existant free market.
There is nothing wrong with contractually-specified limited liability joint stock companies (as far as the NAP goes). However, most (all?) modern corporations are in cahoots with the state, and use things like IP, eminent domain, etc., to gain more power for themselves.
Limited liability anyone?
Whenever somebody tells you that the Internet would not exist without government, pull out this handy quote:
The idea behind the Internet is actually one hundred years old.
Tesla was actually talking about Zero Point Energy.
Yep.
If I lend you $100 to start a business, should you go bankrupt, I can’t be held liable for more than my $100. Joint stock companies are just this same principle en mass.
Individuals do the same.
I assume you advocate applying these same rules to welfare recipients, right?
No, that’s debt financing, not equity financing.
If I LOAN you $100, and my only claim is $100 plus interest, then my liability should be limited to $100 plus interest.
If I BUY a 5% share of all the business’ profits for $100, then why should my liability be limited? As owner, I should be responsible for the business.
Limite liability corporation encourages dishonest behavior. If a business is very nearly bankrupt, the incentive is for a business to hide its financial status from its creditors, since it doesn’t matter if you go bankrupt with a net worth of -$1 or -$1B.
Limited liability incorporation is an artificial creation of government. It does not exist in a free market.
Oh yes, the old corporate personhood is unnatural argument. All of man’s institutions, including law, are unnatural, they are all contrived.
But what privileges of corporate personhood would that be?
Of course, corporations aren’t the only institutions to recieve this “privilege”. The Catholic Church receives this same “privilege” when it owns property or gets sued in court.
You can’t be liable for the interest. You stand a chance to not be paid your interest. Once you lend out your $100 there is a chance you won’t get repaid for it, but no one can come knock on your door and hand you a bill.
Because you are not a controlling owner. You are a provider of capital.
That is a moral hazard for management, not the shareholders. Limited liability doesn’t shelter management from misconduct, so the point is moot.
Nonsense. Corporations are fictions, possible only by state enforcement. Only people can own things, sue and be sued, etc. Fictions cannot. They’re made up. They’re convenient fantasies. Rightfully, all corporate property is open to homesteading, because its status as being owned by a fiction means that they aren’t owned at all.
Blah Blah Blah.
All humans institutions are contrived, they exist only in the human mind. Good luck invading my mind to erase from it such “fictions” as law and property.
If I ask you, “do you own this tractor”, and you say, “no, my unicorn does”, you have just disavowed ownership. You have assigned ownership to a nonexistent entity, and therefore, no one owns it. Guess it’s mine now! It is the same for a corporation.
Law is not an entity, nor is property. They are principles. Are you so thick that you can’t see the difference?
How can a church own something? Its just a building!
Of course, corporations don’t actually own property, they manage it. The property belongs to shareholders.
I think the only way for our non-free free market to exist, still have all the prosperity we have today, and come closest to a free society, is to have the state only tax corporations, nothing else.
Too reformist?
Corporate taxes are passed on. A tax on corporations is just a sales tax by a different name.
Indeed, a church can own nothing. The pope can own it, or the priest, or the parishoners. That non-profit religious corporations are said to exist does not have any bearing on whether corporations exist. This isn’t the first time you brought this up, and I have no idea where you’re going with it.
Not according to how things are run today. It is legally treated as an entity in itself, responsible for “its” own decisions, capable of ownership, everything. Why, corporations can even own each other! Today, if one were to buy a “share” (the fictional division of a fictional entity), you would own just, well, that made up nothing. That made up nothing goes on to a market where people pass money back and forth and pretend they’re getting something. Of course, this really works out to a loan, or… something. With most stocks, you aren’t actually entitled to get anything from the company itself, the value of the stock just fluctuates, based in part on the company’s perfomance. Corporate stock is kinda like fiat money, little pieces of paper, signifying nothing, given value only by people who are willing to play this great game of pretend with an “entity” that exists only because the government makes you acknowledge it.
The only way for me to actually buy, say, 10% of a company is to buy 10% of the assets associated with that business. Then, it would be me owning it, not the company. I don’t even think you could buy 10% of its profits in perpetuity, because the business is inseperable and identical to the people doing business, and that would therefore be a loan in exchange for partial slavery. Block thinks that’s okay, but I don’t.
And I would likewise advocate abolishing that remnant of the union of church and state as well. I’d prefer separation of church and state.
Oh yeah… the “union” where the American Government acknowledges the existence of an organization a thousand years older than itself…wow…