What the Founding Fathers Thought About Corporations

[redivider]

I think you summed up everything wrong with a corporation right there. If nobody would want to risk legal liability for what they do, maybe they shouldn't be doing it.

I think your statistics are backward when it comes to innovation and employment. More people in this country work for small businesses than they do for large corporations. 64% of new jobs in the last few years were created by small business. You can certainly argue that corporations have moved more jobs to other countries than small businesses have. It's difficult to quantify innovation statistically, but just the other day, there was a story on NPR that claimed small businesses were responsible for most of the innovation in this country.



I've done a lot of reading on this subject and I've never heard that particular spin. I suspect you pulled it directly from your ass. Here is a passage from "Gangs of America":

Besides pioneering the use of joint-stock capital and limited liabil-
ity, the East India Company is historically significant because it was
quite simply the most powerful corporation that has ever existed. Imag-
ine a private company so unaccountable it conducts its own criminal
trials and runs its own jails, so dominant it possesses an army larger
than any other organized force in the world, and so predatory that for
more than two centuries it squeezes the economy of the richest country
in the world until observers report that some regions have been “bled
white.” The King is dependent on periodic “loans” from the company.
A third of Parliament owns stock in it, and a tax on its tea constitutes
ten percent of the government’s revenues. A 250,000-man army (twice
the size of Britain’s) fights the company’s wars, and the four out of five
soldiers in that army who are “sepoys,” i.e. Indians, are kept in line by
punishments such as “blowing away” strapping an offending soldier
across the mouth of a cannon and firing the weapon.

Does this sound like a company that was fearful of the king? It's more often argued that corporations had a powerful influence over the crown not the other way around as you have imagined it. But even corporations less powerful than the East India Trading Company were not tools of the crown. They complied with taxation and various laws but the crown didn't direct their business affairs. Where in the hell did you come up with corporations being agents of the empire? Which ones and in what ways? Did they single out corporations for this or was it the same with all businesses?

dude, it's revisionist history... a staple of conservative 'mis-understanding' of reality.

just like how black kids had a better chance of being raised in a stable home during slavery.... and how blacks willingly fought for the south to keep their right to own slaves..... or how corporations are what create jobs, nothing to do with demand.... how unionized labor is a problem for society, not one of the solutions to poverty....

 

[jeff f]

I think you summed up everything wrong with a corporation right there. If nobody would want to risk legal liability for what they do, maybe they shouldn't be doing it.

that first sentence told me all i need to know about your understanding of corps. you have no idea how many lawyers are working actively to take you down by suing a company. thats a free meal ticket for the rest of their life.

in light of that, i completey skipped the rest of your diatrbe

 

[undertheice]

that first sentence told me all i need to know about your understanding of corps. you have no idea how many lawyers are working actively to take you down by suing a company. that's a free meal ticket for the rest of their life.

in light of that, i completely skipped the rest of your diatribe

i hate to say it jefff, but you should have kept on reading. our little bedbug made the perfectly valid point that some of these corporations did, in fact, eventually rival the power of their masters. what he neglects to mention is that this in no way changed their origins or their mission. with an authority derived from the state, they continued to be an arm of the state's agenda. regardless of that internal balance of power, that melding of the power of the state with the power of the marketplace created institutions over which the people were powerless. what his post did bring up was a question that i neglected to include and is further argument against such governmental control over the private sector. what do we do when a corporation, imbued with the violent powers of government through either mandate or association, dominates its relationship with the state? modern corporations, left independent of the state and able to influence the workings of government only in the manner of any other organization, are incapable of raising a force against the people and demanding anything of them. their actions have no legal standing but what is given to them by the state and the judiciary can act as the safeguard of the people. once the barrier between the public and the private is breached, those safeguards begin to dwindle.

 

[redivider]

[youtube]2fMTp9hCgWI[/youtube]



yeah, big corporations have no way of generating enough power to exert their influence outside of their regular operations.....

you need to get your head out of your ass. QUICK.

 

[undertheice]

yeah, big corporations have no way of generating enough power to exert their influence outside of their regular operations.....

you need to get your head out of your ass. QUICK.

more crap about the evils of private security? you still don't get it and i doubt you ever will. it takes the collusion of government or, at the very least, its incompetence to allow a private security force to infringe on the rights of a u.s. citizen. all else may be remedied through the courts. i'm not saying that the record of private security is pristine, but that its actions are no more official than those of the security guard that roams your local mall. unless they are imbued with power by the state, their illegal actions are (ideally) just as prosecutable as anyone else's. that we don't necessarily live in an ideal and just world is certainly no reason to suspend the rights of any of us.

 

[jeff f]

i hate to say it jefff, but you should have kept on reading. our little bedbug made the perfectly valid point that some of these corporations did, in fact, eventually rival the power of their masters. what he neglects to mention is that this in no way changed their origins or their mission. with an authority derived from the state, they continued to be an arm of the state's agenda. regardless of that internal balance of power, that melding of the power of the state with the power of the marketplace created institutions over which the people were powerless. what his post did bring up was a question that i neglected to include and is further argument against such governmental control over the private sector. what do we do when a corporation, imbued with the violent powers of government through either mandate or association, dominates its relationship with the state? modern corporations, left independent of the state and able to influence the workings of government only in the manner of any other organization, are incapable of raising a force against the people and demanding anything of them. their actions have no legal standing but what is given to them by the state and the judiciary can act as the safeguard of the people. once the barrier between the public and the private is breached, those safeguards begin to dwindle.

i guess you cant judge a book, by the first sentence, and you are correct. they get a hand in govt, with supporters and can legally fuck the competition.

as usual, you make me think. and as usual, your points are brilliant. god bless you brother

 

[jeff f]

I think you summed up everything wrong with a corporation right there. If nobody would want to risk legal liability for what they do, maybe they shouldn't be doing it.

I think your statistics are backward when it comes to innovation and employment. More people in this country work for small businesses than they do for large corporations. 64% of new jobs in the last few years were created by small business. You can certainly argue that corporations have moved more jobs to other countries than small businesses have. It's difficult to quantify innovation statistically, but just the other day, there was a story on NPR that claimed small businesses were responsible for most of the innovation in this country.



I've done a lot of reading on this subject and I've never heard that particular spin. I suspect you pulled it directly from your ass. Here is a passage from "Gangs of America":

Besides pioneering the use of joint-stock capital and limited liabil-
ity, the East India Company is historically significant because it was
quite simply the most powerful corporation that has ever existed. Imag-
ine a private company so unaccountable it conducts its own criminal
trials and runs its own jails, so dominant it possesses an army larger
than any other organized force in the world, and so predatory that for
more than two centuries it squeezes the economy of the richest country
in the world until observers report that some regions have been “bled
white.” The King is dependent on periodic “loans” from the company.
A third of Parliament owns stock in it, and a tax on its tea constitutes
ten percent of the government’s revenues. A 250,000-man army (twice
the size of Britain’s) fights the company’s wars, and the four out of five
soldiers in that army who are “sepoys,” i.e. Indians, are kept in line by
punishments such as “blowing away” strapping an offending soldier
across the mouth of a cannon and firing the weapon.

Does this sound like a company that was fearful of the king? It's more often argued that corporations had a powerful influence over the crown not the other way around as you have imagined it. But even corporations less powerful than the East India Trading Company were not tools of the crown. They complied with taxation and various laws but the crown didn't direct their business affairs. Where in the hell did you come up with corporations being agents of the empire? Which ones and in what ways? Did they single out corporations for this or was it the same with all businesses?

upon further review, and some council from UTI (calling someone uti, never gets old) you are on the money. please accept my humble apology.

sincerely,

the sometimes confused, stoned, limp dicked, tax evading and drunk jeff gets confused. but i see the light....despite all the sativa i smoke