Is now the time to shut down all corporations?

[Boojatta]

Originally, unions were illegal for a very simple reason. A legitimate economic transaction is a trade between two individuals because only individuals exist. There is no such thing as society. When more than two individuals enter into an agreement with each other to form a labor union, they are practicing collectivism. Not only did governments refuse to recognize such agreements as legally binding, but they violently intervened to break up unions.

At this moment in history, we can see that a corporation can be a kind of mini-society, a collective that (just like a union) forces its evil unreality upon the real world. Furthermore, a corporation's activities have economic consequences, and thus, before a corporation achieves anything resembling monopoly power, it is already distorting the economic picture. If the owners, directors, and managers of a corporation comprise more than two people, then the rules of that corporation constitute an agreement that isn't legitimate. Given that such an agreement isn't legitimate, we naturally arrive at the idea of shutting down corporations and allowing individuals to achieve their own economic destiny by means of unrestrained trade between any two individuals who choose to trade with each other.

Few people ask themselves why unions were outlawed. They simply label it as an unfortunate episode of history that is best forgotten. Obviously it wasn't any collectivist conspiracy that caused unions to be outlawed. It was a heroic effort by champions of individualism who fought for and temporarily won the battle against collectivism. Their effort set an important precedent. Instead of hoping to use the collectivism of the union as a weak counter-balance against the collectivism of the corporation, shouldn't we be trying to outlaw both unions and corporations? Yes, such a plan will be initially unpopular with the representatives of organized labor, but we need to look beyond that. We need to appeal to the champions of individualism and show them that we are willing to give them something that they already want.

[pscot]

1. This is like the mice

proposing to hang a bell on the cat. Great idea, but the devil is in the details.

[snot]

2. Good analysis; but I'd add:

I've been thinking, the real issue is not whether or not we should allow "corporations," but rather to focus on underlying, systemic factors:

1. One factor seems to be size. Once an organization of any kind reaches a certain size, those at the top become less directly answerable to those at the bottom, there's less transparency, and the org is also more vulnerable to being hijacked by sociopaths. This tendency would apply regardless of the type of org -- a corp., an investment fund, a union, a government, even a non-profit charity (viz. the hijacking of the American Red Cross).

2. Another factor seems to be personal liability. It is now difficult to hold organizational managers responsible because the law shields them from personal liability for most actions purportedly on behalf of the org. The argument is that we need to give entrepreneurs some degree of protection in order to encourage them to take risks and innovate. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but it certainly seems like we've made this shield far too thick.

Beyond that, I do not agree that we should outlaw all kinds of organizations, or any kind. People can accomplish more good by organizing than they can acting individually, as well as more evil. E.g., we need government in order to have laws and police that protect us all from being robbed, raped, and murdered; we need organizations in order to have sufficient divisions of labor so that grandma doesn't have to scrutinize the balance sheet of her credit union in order to determine whether her savings are safe; etc.

[hack89]

3. No - I enjoy earning a pay check. nt

[fasttense]

4. Yes, they provide very few jobs that we couldn't do ourselves.

Most of the jobs around here are in the service sector and why do we need a foreign (as in out of state and out of country) corporation to provide services for us? They also take any profits they make from our local area and move it to another country or state.

The things that would disappear in a 100 mile radius if corporations went poof: 300 fast food restaurants, 3 mega stores that sell strictly Chinese products (like Wal-Mart), Comcast, Cable TV, land-line and cell phones and that's about it. I think doing all those things locally would really revive this community.

[GliderGuider]

5. Not shut them down, perhaps, but...

Something most people don’t know about unions is that they were initially developed with the strong (but covert) support of the factory owners in England during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. The reason the owners were initially in favour of unions is that during the movement from craft production to factory production there was a lot of worker resistance to the regimentation of factory life. The owners discovered that their workers were more obedient if the discipline for breaking the rules was seen to be coming from their peers rather than from the owners.

As the unions gained more power they began to actually work in the interests of their membership – trying to set conditions of work including the speed of the line. That was unacceptable to the owners, so they used their political connections to de-legitimize unions and union demands. When the anti-union violence got out of hand, public sympathy swung back towards the unions, offsetting the politicians' and owners' distaste for them.

Unions and corporations both manifest the hierarchic urges that spring from the reptilian portion of our evolved triune brain, as well as the social herding predispositions of our limbic systems. From that point of view corporations and unions are little different – the differences we see are cultural constructs layered on top of these deep primal urges.

For me, most of the excesses of our socioeconomic structures come from their excessive size. Humans function best in organizations no bigger than about 150 people (as described by Dunbar’s Number). Organizations of that size allow people to maximize their creativity and productivity, but reduce the possibility that the organization will exhibit excessive hierarchy, domination, exploitive values, alienation and resulting personal and interpersonal instabilities. Think of tribes here, or the incredible energy and common purpose of a small start-up company.

So rather than get rid of corporations or other socioeconomic organizations, I’d propose that they be capped at a maximum size of 200 individuals, with no more than 3 levels of hierarchy. Together with removing fictive personhood, that would solve most of the problems that corporations create.

In my dreams...

[fasttense]

6. Unions are not an authoritarian hierarchy they are the only democratic feature in today's workforce.

Owners, managers and executives are little dictators or kings. They tell the worker, what when and how to do something. Workers have very little input in today's corporations. Unions are a different beast all together.

If a union leader gets overbearing and dictatorial, members can get together and vote him out. In most cases (co-op manufacturing excluded) you can NOT vote out your boss no matter how miserable he makes everyone and no matter how much money he lost for the corporation. Some Union bosses can get out of control especially when members allow organized crime a foothold. But overall, I'd rather work for a union then without one. Your pay is always lower when you have no union.

Unions and Corporations are very different.

[GliderGuider]

7. If you say so...

I agree that most workers would rather work with one than without one in today's corporate environment. Hell, I spent 20 years in the software trenches doing telecommunications R&D programming, and I ended up realizing that even those workers ought to be unionized.

I'm hardly anti-union, I come from 3 generations of socialist family background. However, I've discovered that most of the time the actual operation of a socioeconomic structure - whether it's a legal system, a government, a corporation or a union - is very different from what we are asked to believe it is.

[Oilstocks]

8. Take Advantage Of People

Its true, corporations are created to have advantages over everyone. Tax breaks, the structure of the business entices people to give you money, thus making tons of cash. Corporations where made so one individual (corporation /entity) can do a transaction with multiple individuals, simultaneously and in a way to not take advantage of those inside the business. Only the ones who are knowledge know how to leverage their education to success. If we didn't have corporations, we would be just another 3rd world country.


http://www.investorstocktips.com/international-tips/international-crisis-affects-stock-market">International Crisis Affects Stock Market

[golfguru]

9. Yeah baby! Then we can all work for the government

and get those terrific benefit packages.

[David West]

10. Wouldn't doing this necessitate a colllective...

...that (just like a union) forces it's evil unreality upon the world?

Collectivism is the idea that the collective has more rights than the individual; that the collective can force individuals to conform to a certain standard if the overall effect on the collective will be beneficial.

If people want to voluntarily unite under the banner of a corporation (or a union, or a guild, or sports league...) what is it that, short of them attempting to force their will upon you, gives you the right to "violently intervene" to break them up? Wouldn't you, by putting a violent stop to voluntary actions in an attempt to crush corporations, be "distorting the economic picture?"

How can you consider corporations and unions (which, without the help of government or the initiation of pseudo-governmental force on their part, are purely voluntary organizations) as collectivist ideology and yet seemingly support the government, an institution that treats participation as decidedly INvoluntary? The government is as collectivist as it gets, and while your ideas seem to be all across the ideological map, the impression I'm getting is that you too are likely a collectivist.