Can you make a claim on yet-to-be earned income? I’m really not sure. I don’t have the background in understanding law that many others here do.
This is such a ridiculous strawmen, when have I said otherwise?
And what if, a person voluntary contracts to assume the responsbility to sue the corporation, not the individuals that make it up (or more specifically the shareholders)
Read:
I would say the collectivism is the claim that if I run you over you can sue somebody who bought shares in the company I work for.
That’s just not true, unless you can prove causation, which is the point.
And yet, you can sue the corporation, but not the people. Which undermines the argument you make.
And? You sound like a leftist ergo you dislike property. See, I can do that too.
To BP:
Then they are signing a contract that puts them at a disadvantage.
Unfortunately for you, that isn’t my argument. My arguement is you can sue the individuals who actually are responsible for the thing in question, and a legal status of corporate personhood doesn’t change this. Now I get to claim “straw man”.
The entire point is that causation ultimately must come from some human beings, you can’t just use the legal definition of an institutional entity to obscure this.
What are you talking about? I’m argueing against the legal status of the corporation and argueing that the actual specific individuals responsible for something should be held responsible. That doesn’t undermine my argument, it is my argument.
Are you really this dense? The point is a matter of consistancy with one’s own premises. If you premise is X, and you make an argument with the opposite premise of X in another context, you have a contradiction to resolve. Hence, if you argue against the state by rejecting premise X, and then proceed to defend corporations using premise X, you have a contradiction to resolve. If the defense of the corporation is true, you must accept the same implications for the state.
Thanks! 
First off, make your own arguments instead of making appeals to authority.
Second off, the argument is bunk. Only people can have titles to property and only people can be sued. Creating a legal entity does not magically mean that the individual people involved are not responsible for their actions and are not the actual owners. So which is it: is the corporation an independant entity in its own right that has the title to property, or are the individual human beings in question the ones with the title to property? One can’t have it both ways. The idea that a legal entity can be treated as a property owner, and yet no individual human beings are, is nonsensical on its face. An organization that exists independantly of its members if a metaphysical absurdity. An organization having legal title to property and yet no individual person within it having that legal title makes no sense. Methinks Kinsella has to work out the kinks of methodological individualism, and his argument opens up a vague can of worms in which we wonder “how can noone own it and everyone own it at the same time?”. He just opens a vague territory in which he doesn’t specify who actually owns what, and if anything it’s at this point that a calculation problem argument applies to the corporation, since it is indeed unclear as to who owns what.
I’m no legal expert myself - That last question was just food for thought.
By “superior” I meant superior in order of priority. The order of priority is such that the shareholder is the “residual” claimant - he gets what’s left over once obligations have been satisfied (e.g., paychecks disbursed, invoices paid, interest on borrowed capital paid, etc.) Certainly, though, there are recognized and legitimate claims to unearned income. The shareholders already have a claim to unrealized income (“unearned” is a four-letter word - i know you didn’t mean it, but could be confused for Marxist ideas).
My question, food for thought as it were, was “Where in this order of priority is the aggrieved party?” The priority of most obligations is temporal: If I lent you money before Jim lent you money, you have to pay me back before you pay Jim back (unless Jim and I have some sort of subordination agreement). In some instances, multiple lenders agree to quotal shares in the event that debt cannot be 100% satisfied.
I would offer that the aggrieved party should probably be first in line for future income, until his debt is satisfied.
Whatever is leftover after his judgment is satisfied, remains for disbursement among the others. Sometimes, this means that the shareholders or the bondholders won’t get any return for a period of time. In rare instances, perhaps, the company will be forced to liquidate in order to satisfy the debt - remember in a free market, judgments should be honest and fair, reflecting actual damages and so on, so awards should not typically be crippling financially.
What would be unique about this situation (?) since is that a superior obligation would be created without the affirmative subordination by temporally superior debts.
Again, I’m no legal expert. Kind of just shooting from the hip here, so it would be interesting to see what ppl have to say on this.
Then, prove it. It isn’t this difficult (actually, it is).
This is what limited liability is all about.
I can use the fact that these are voluntary contracts, unless you deny that? As in the quote I posted, it says the ability to sue the institution is for the benefit for those wishing to sue corporation, since they don’t have to go after every shareholder, and the corporation has “deeper pockets” than the managers.
The corporation makes this easier.
Only I don’t.
But I’ve defended the notion of voluntaryism, something you have an issue with.
Then, prove it. It isn’t this difficult (actually, it is).
This is what limited liability is all about.
I can use the fact that these are voluntary contracts, unless you deny that? As in the quote I posted, it says the ability to sue the institution is for the benefit for those wishing to sue corporation, since they don’t have to go after every shareholder, and the corporation has “deeper pockets” than the managers.
The corporation makes this easier.
Only I don’t.
But I’ve defended the notion of voluntaryism, something you have an issue with.
I’ve been reading this thread and I fail to see what makes Brainpolice’s argumets “left-libertarian”. It seems to me that all he is doing is arguing for economic and political individualism (which I fully agree with).
Prove it? Isn’t it blatantly obvious that the inability to hold someone accountbale for damage is disadvantagous compared to the ability to hold someone accountable for damages? This is common sense, really. If me or my property experiences damages, it is advantageous for me to be able to get restitution, and hence it is disadvantageous for me to not be able to get restitution.
What is? Limited liability is about shielding individuals from being held responsible by defaulting to a legal construct.
The legal status of a corporation is not a voluntary contract, it is a state law. I don’t know how many times I have to clarify this. Internal to the organization, there indeed may be plenty of voluntary contracts, but the actual legal status is a state-defined law, not a private contract.
The corporation in and of itself is not a person, and hence has no rights, just like the state in and of itself is not a person, and hence has no rights. Only actual people have rights and responsibilities. The corporation and state, as entities in and of themselves independant of human beings, cannot be held responsible for anything and simply do not exist. All that exists and can be held responsible for things and given rights are the people involved. This is why corporate personhood is no more legitimate than state personhood. Indeed, the state does the same thing, I.E. the individual members are not really held responsible and the legal fiction of “the government” is what is treated as the entity with rights and responsibilities.
The corporation as a legal status or entity is INDEPENDANT of people, so no, it does just the opposite.
No, you are being misleading. I have not argued against voluntaryism. Unfortunately, what you do is assume that voluntaryism = the things you favor, and by extension when someone argues against the things you favor you mistakenly assume that they are argueing against voluntaryism.
I do identify as a left-libertarian, but you’re correct that all I’m really doing is consistantly drawing out the implications of individualism. From my perspective, left-libertarian conclusions are what logically follow from doing this. My criticism of what I consider to be right-libertarianism is in fact that it isn’t individualistic and radical enough, that it selectively falls back on communitarianism and traditionalism when it is convenient.
It might be helpful to learn about the corporation, or leave the debating to those that do. Thank you, however, for assuring me of the fact that your post is ad hoc.
Individuals that have nothing to do with the event that is in question. A corporation merely makes it easier for the corporation to be sued.
As opposted to your precious unions? Stop being so dishonest, I’ve argued that corporations are possible in a free society. You’re granted this and proceeded to argue against this.
No, but you would agree people do? Such rights as, say, freedom of association?
False analogy.
You mean like free association? You are the one who is injecting personal preference.
I’m going to ignore you from now, you’re just being a silly little troll, and you’re clueless about economics. Start being intellectually honest and I might respond. Preferably I’d ask you to stop posting on this topic entirely, but you’re not decent enough to do that.
Huh? This doesn’t even make sense in response to what I’m saying.
I don’t mean to nitpick, but do you not see the illogical nature of this statement? The creation or formation of a corporation makes it easier for the corporation (which didn’t previously exist as a corporation) to be sued? It wasn’t a corporation beforehand.
And no, it does just the opposite. It makes it harder for the actual people involved to be sued, and the people involved are all that matters. Hence the creation of the legal status of the corporation, which is what is sued instead of actual people.
What precious unions? You’re sidetracking from the argument at hand, and mischacterizing me in the process to boot.
You don’t seem to even comprehend what’s being argued. I have granted that limited liability contracts are possible in a free society but simply don’t apply to anyone besides the parties privy to the contract, and argued that limited liability as a state law is not possible, and that the modern corporation is primarily based on the latter, not the former.
Yes, but the legitimacy of the modern corporation, which is based on a state-created legal status, doesn’t follow.
No, not a false analogy. Anything that the principle can be applied to is a valid analogy.
This argument isn’t about free association, it’s about the legal status of corporations - which is not a mere question of personal preferance. Don’t be disingenous.
What do you expect, a circle jerk in which everyone agrees with you, when you’ve made a post denouncing the entire libertarian left?
I second that.
Notice, I can debate quite nicely with David_z, you’re the troll here.
I just gave up. I’m sick and tired of BP’s trolling.
No BP. What we would like is a debate on topic, and on subject dealing in facts. Not ad homs. Not strawmen. Not lies. Just an honest discussion.
It seems clear to me that “left-libertarian” is defined in terms of an encounter, rather than an ideology. That sort of definition is certainly purposeful, and hardly a hidden agenda. The left-libertarian2 list has taken Konkin’s phrase “everyone here disagrees” as a kind of motto, and the Alliance of the Libertarian left has explicitly defined itself in terms of broad collaboration. If Carson, Johnson and Long represent a “variety,” it’s a fairly diverse one, no matter how much they have been influenced by one another. It’s a bit silly to criticize the term as “poorly defined,” when you seem to think it has a definition of an entirely different sort than, well, the most public of its actual definitions.
Since we are supposed to be arguing in terms that are not vague and ad hominem, some suggestion of examples would be nice, rather than this steadily-mounting mass of vague digs. Honestly, from what you’ve written I can’t tell what the “leftist anti rules/ anti egalitarian/ anti corporation ideology” is supposed to be. And as an old anarcho-syndicalist-turned-Proudhonian mutualist, it seems like I ought to know.
Umm. Yeah. Those silly, unspecified homs (of the Carson/Johnson/Long “variety”? or have we already left that limitation behind?) who attack people. There is certaintly a good deal of misrepresentation on all sides, but, having limited your critique to a particular group of figures, would you be good enough to show if or how your critique of “the left” applies to those figures? Carson’s use of the phrase seems clear enough, for example.
Anyway, having chosen this (sometimes admittedly, not to mention consciously) amusing phrase for the title of your post, and having already engaged in a bit of general criticism that doesn’t seem to be based in facts or arguments, you seem to be verging on “pot calling the kettle” territory, at best.
Hmm. Is the opposition to the state, in your opinion, merely to protect a particular form of private property? Is all currently-recognized private property worthy of defense from “thugs”? It’s convenient to consider those with opposing views on property rights as “thugs,” and to blacken left-libertarians with their “defense,” although it probably doesn’t match the reality of the recent debates on, say, the Twin Cities events very well. But it isn’t any sort of argument.
With regard to unions, nobody has been clearer than Carson about his opposition to the kind of unions supported or created by state labor laws (though Johnson has certainly come close.) Honestly, to have got these arguments so completely wrong speaks volumes about your lack of real engagement with, and comprehension of left-libertarian arguments.
The alliance explicitly favored by Long, Johnson and Carson is with socialists and leftists who, as it has been put, “hate the state more than the market,” and it is an alliance to hash out to what extent the “left,” or those portions of the “left,” are already truly and broadly “libertarian,” and to what extent “libertarians” are already, or perhaps should be, in sympathy with the core concerns of the socialist movement. (Hint: nobody in the Alliance thinks the core concerns survived into state socialism as more than shadows. You can disagree about the core concerns, etc., but if you argue with Carson as if he is Lenin you’ll simply miss the boat completely.)
There are some more specific points from later in your post that I’ll try to come back to later, but many of them seem to rise from the same sorts of misunderstandings or misrepresentations of the “variety” of left-libertarianism you claim to be addressing.
I am a culturally conservative libertarian. My father is also(a VERY dedicated one), and one of the things he taught me about cultural conservatism was the importance of being polite and respectful. The importance of acting in a civil manner when participating in discussions. I am quite embarrassed that some people claiming to be cultural conservatives have such horrible manners. Maybe you are more anti-leftist than you are cultural-conservative.
With that said, I guess I can understand your frustration. I think today’s youth are worse than any other generation in history. It has gotten to the point where I actually need to bring my own books to my school in order to learn(all purchased from mises.org of coarse). Most students have no respect, decency, or morals. They only care about those stupid little high school social problems. “I want to go to the dance! But I have an exam to study for. Oh well, I will just go to the dance and cheat on my exams.”
I cannot wait to move into a community when I am older. This community will have a dress code. I wont have to see men’s saggy pants anymore. Women wont be able to walk around half naked like desperate sluts(sorry, I cannot think of a nicer word…Whores?). There could finally be a code of conduct people must live by. I’m actually quite excited just imagining how nice this place could be. haha. Someday, I might actually start a new thread to discuss with other people what their perfect community would look like.