Nick, I have a genuine curiosity about how you came to this. If you don’t want to respond publicly, could you send me a PM? I’d like to know because I am trying to trace where this notion came from, and to do so, I need to understand the rationale and sources behind it, because a lot of people seem to hold this idea, although I cannot figure out where it originated or with what argument as it’s foundation.
Oh sure Liberty Student, sorry it took me so long to answer. Well I must concede that I never really dwelved in depth on this subject and came to my conclusions on the basis of two admittedly informal and sloppy deductions: 1) conversing with other market anarchist on other sites and 2) just my confused understanding of what a corporation is. I’ve alway thought that corporations were institutions created by the state and not of the market and would thus disappear. I can see now that I made a grave mistake in reasoning. And again I am truly sorry it took me so long to answer.
Do you think Nick’s belief is outlandish ?
The current system is mercantilistic/is a mixed economy. Big firms are subsidized so they can be bigger and more bureaucratic than they would be under more competition. So, remove legal privileges and big firms will be forced to reorganize along more decentralized lines.
On the ohter hand, that doesn’t mean that big firms are not possible in a real free-market. But I doubt they will be the same firms that thrive in a mixed economy. Remove the privileges the banking/financial mafia enjoys and you’ll probably see how they cease to be the “masters of the universe” as Bill Bonner jokingly calls them.
No worries. So you would say it was probably a combination of misunderstanding and the telephone game then. Makes sense. I don’t know any libertarian/anarchists who have incorporated and hold this view, likely because they understand the process of incorporation more intimately.
Thanks for writing back.
I think it is wrong. I think Kinsella, Cork and I have made that very clear. I think now that Nick better understands it, he may also believe it no longer holds true.
Maybe, maybe not. I don’t really care. If there is justice in the system, property rights/no coercion, then I don’t care what firms emerge, how they are structured etc. I know the only way they will persist and be successful, will be to please me as a consumer.
You asked a question and when you got an answer (that you don’t seem to like?) you say I don’t care ?
What answer didn’t I like? I explained to you, I care more about being satisfied as a consumer in the marketplace than the size or capital structure of the firm I deal with.
My issue with refuting the misconception that corporations can’t exist outside of the state, is to highlight that the people who promote such views are anti-capitalists, not free market libertarians, and as such, they should be exposed for what they are. Either ignorant or deliberately dishonest.
Again, this
is not outlandish and is not ‘anti-capitalist’. Forget about the word ‘corporation’ - replace it with business. The main idea doesn’t change. I’m not saying that’s a 100% accurate vision of the future , yet Nick is not saying that the world would by run by coops either (while social anarchists seem to believe it will).
So do I. But the topic was not what we like or not, but the origin of some idea you seemed to regard as “left-libertarian” heresy or something, when in reality it’s in line with ordinary libertarian views. (except for the bit about ‘corporations’ but that’s legalistic details)
That’s how I see it. While I believe that in an market anarchist society some things will stay the same, I also believe some things will be very, very different. I do see alot of different types of businness models existing in market anarchy along with the current corporation, and as a result society will look much different in many ways.
Juan, we don’t disagree, but you seem to make a point of constantly trying to create debate where none exists. You might have that time to invest, and I did previously, but no more. You’ll have to find some other sucker to play ring-around-the-rosie with.
And I never said that, so it is a strawman.
Opps. Meant to say that " I believe NOW". Got to give it more thought though.
I don’t think it’s that things will stay the same. There might not end up being any corporations. I don’t profess to know. But I do know that corporations as we understand them, can exist in a voluntary society.
I’m always highly skeptical of anyone who tells me “how it will work in a free society”, just as I have really lost my taste for responding to questions like “who will build the roads?”
I trust in the market. The people who will prosper in the market will be the ones who satisfy my needs and wants at a price I an afford. The free market guarantees nothing.
And that is why it is beautiful, because if we could conceptualize the outcomes, structures and hierarchies of a free market world, we could just implement it with the state and skip the whole messy competition aspect. In a sense, this is what the anarcho-socialists believe. Their communes, while voluntary, seek to avoid open competition, and instead encourage concensus.
Interesting, could you clarify?
Competition will shape what firms survive and what firms do not. Competition will shape prices, it will direct resources, it will reward firms that serve their customers well.
We can’t conceptualize the free market, because we cannot begin to understand the complexity of the decisions of single actor, let alone millions or billions of actors in the aggregate.
So to say “the free market will be this” or “the free market will have firms like that”, is somewhat ridiculous. No one knows. If they can’t predict what an unfree market wants, how could they possibly predict what a free market wants? And even if they could, a free market is flexible and can change, unlike a statist market that is always striving to keep things static and status quo.
My only point about corporations are, they are not the product of an involuntary state. The same structure can be replicated voluntarily. Will it be? I don’t know. Will it succeed? I don’t know. Will there be lots or few? Will they be big or small? I don’t know. Anyone who says they do, is full of crap IMO.
The idea that Walmart could not exist without corporate law is ridiculous, it would simply be integrated into the Walton family if not organized as a joint stock company; as was always the case before the invention of the joint stock.
Of course, incorporation offers advantages for both the Walton’s and their creditors, so is embraced.
Do remember that there is a difference between big business and between corporations, and also between what is usually meant by “big business” and large firms per se. And also there is a difference between saying that large firms rely indirectly on the state, and saying that large firms are inherently evil.
So are smaller firms, this has be done before. Klein and Kinsella ran circles around Carson and Long, not suprisingly either (Block’s answer was very poor). The fact of the matter is that you can point to numerous ways in which the government harms big businesses at the expense of smaller ones, and likewise you point to how big business is subsidized at the expense of smaller ones.
Here’s the fact of the matter, as much as the anticapitalists would love it to be so, there are reasons why banks, insurance companies, car producers will always be big.
Small businesses are subsidized as well. IT DOES NOT FOLLOW, however, that this invalidates the analysis for big businesses. So…try again.
Well, either you’re going to have to show that small business who have been subsidized are bigger than they would have otherwise been or you’ll have to admit that subsidies don’t affect the size of the business.
Oh Giles. The thing is, I was about to remark that some subsidized small businesses would not exist in a free market - they will either get bigger or disappear.
So, you see, intervention affects the size of all businesses. Which means all your objections are not valid. The analysis for big business is correct and the fact that small businesses are also subsidized is irrelevant to the validity of said analysis. You - fail ?