##Rights and Corporations === [Content warning: this contains meta-politics. Doctors believe meta-politics might slightly less detrimental to your health than straight politics, but they still might be against many sensible information diets.] === I’m not exactly pleased with how much of my life I spent in the debate community, but one thing it did for me was expose me to the Spark Notes version of the libertarian tradition, including Lockean rights theory . . . for Babies[1]. Ripping Locke out his historical context, as does both Robert Nozick [2] as well as kids in suits who vastly over-estimate their intelligence [3], the basics of the argument is that even if there was no government at all we would have life, liberty, and property. For the purposes of what I am trying to argue today, we can just concede that premise. Obviously, there are a great many complications, and many of them were not beyond the milieu of thinkers on these issues at the time, or even to Locke himself (if only people could be bothered to read a book, let alone do so carefully) but I am used to the rough and tumble of winning the battle of soundbites, so I at least get where those who make the value assertion in the present-day are coming from. Speaking of value assertions, the next one is that you should look at government as a rights protection agency, which you can only legitimately hire out to protect those rights to life, liberty, and property. Again, the argument very well could, if not should, bog down here [4], but I again can concede the point, as I am about to offer a retort. My retort: a Libertarian who has built the *moral* argument for rights on the two premises above has no business feeling good about corporations — certainly no right to be smug (in their little dapper suits), though it is understandable if they come off smarmy, or are angry with a defensiveness that shows real weakness and insecurity , casting about to find the support of peers for validation, even though such collectivism and truth via politics (nay, the micro-politics of micro-aggressions) forms another delicious performative contradiction of their most dearly held beliefs about their atomization, free-thinking, and integrity. There are no corporations in nature. They are created by governments. Worse, they are created by governments to limit liabilities, in other words allow organizations to form that violate rights and then have those who have benefited have a discount on paying restitution. Once the costs of legal damages are more than the company has is more than the company has, the company is bankrupt, but there is no ability to go after the *personal* fortunes of the shareholders -- even if large dividend payments have been made from profits that are now shown to be fraudulent, if not murderous. Once the corporation is dead, what happens to those with unpaid claims, especially in the kind of minimum government that the Libertarians dream about? Thus a reason, if not the *main point*, of corporations is to violate rights in ways that generate wealth. But that wealth and the distribution of that wealth exist at the leisure of legal structures, not any bedrock of "natural rights." So you can see, the tradition of trust busting is not anti-libertarian, and is as American as apple pie. But good luck finding a Libertarian who believes that. Here's a pet idea of mine: governments could choose to only offer charters to companies that make employees shareholders, diluting shares as new employees come on. If some rich people wanted to make business entities structured so they would reap all the profits -- fine, but they won't be able to have any liability protection that comes with a corporate charter. They would be *personally* liable for whatever happens. (Getting how different of a business environment that would really be?) As Taleb would say, this would put some skin in the game. And more skin certainly needs to be in the games of political economy. In reality, this is just me playing around with ideas. It was for entertainment purposes only. There is virtually no chance this would ever change a Libertarians mind as these arguments aren't the real reason anyone is Libertarian. Instead, I am attempting an act of de-mythologizing. === [1] There is a book series of those chunky card books for kids that tries to tackle science topics with the naming format of “X . . . for Babies.” Whenever my wife I end up shopping for a young child, I find one of these books and make a little sing-song voice for the “. . . for Babies” part. I particularly like Astrophysics . . . for Babies which features some gridded images to represent space under different distortions. [2] In his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. I almost recommend the book just to read his prose style, where the premises are frequently questioned and different pathways are constantly hinted at. Locke is writing in a time where the Divine Right of Kings was an ongoing project both on the Continent (where it was winning) and by James II (who was being resisted, and would be defeated by Dutch invasion that his Protestant subjects invited and labeled the Glorious Revolution of 1688). Locke goes deep into theology in his First Treatise on Government, which modern readers try to ignore, and even then still has to appeal to theological warrant in his Second Treatise. Nozick shrugs, waves his hand, shrugs again, and then moves on. [3] In doesn’t even matter if one in a hundred of them really is at a stellar IQ; their estimation of their intelligence is just too high for any debater to reach. A future Tesla, Bucky, and Musk should be smart enough to either not do the activity or quickly exit it. [4] Here’s my personal favorite[a], one that I promise will never convince anyone, even though it is correct: the Libertarians want to see liberty, property, life as negative rights — showing only what governments cannot violate, not positive rights -- what governments should do or provide. But then where is your positive right to policing, courts, administration of punishments and restitutions? All the sudden you want government to *do* something? It doesn't matter that you have established that you want governments to do those things because they are just and fair, once you establish that governments have positive obligations (with the necessary flip-side that citizens have positive rights) you can no longer base everything a government must do on the theory of negative rights. . . The reason so much rights discourse comes out for negative rights is that governments existed first, including autocracies and military dictatorships and for purely practical and utilitarian reasons people wanted limits on government. [a] It might be my favorite out of pure nostalgia. I was a young, analytic man, chasing the roots of ideas that I only later realized no one cares about. Sigh. Youth. Even after it gets done being wasted on the younger version of yourself, it comes back to sway your emotions in your old age — often leading to old age being wasted on the old. === I'd love to hear from people. My email is the handle minus "net" (work by Voltaire that starts with "c"), at sdf.org.