a writer from CATO responds to kos:
I think Kos underestimates just how wary of corporations libertarians generally are. Classical liberal political economy tells us that the greater the scope and power of state coercion, the stronger the incentive for economically powerful private interests, such as corporations, to use it to their own advantage, squashing competition, consolidating advantage, and channeling taxpayer dollars into corporate coffers. Libertarians have never believed in leaving corporations unchecked. The way you check corporations is by taking political power off the table.
4 comments:
large corporations like to sue each other for antitrust violations.
that exerpt makes me want to read about the development of large economic enterprises. i want to read a history of large corporations and their relationship with powerful centralized governments written by someone who isn't an ideological crank.
a corporation is just another system where human beings come together, pool resources, and create things.
really, it's just another incarnation of a group-run entity: like collectives, governments, partnerships, or even you and your sister planning a birthday party. large corporations are just more complex organizations, and if they wanted to, they *can* throw their weight around with results that affect a lot of people (with "good" or "bad" results, or both, depending on how they do it).
anyway, i guess my random comment came from reading too many antitrust law cases a couple of months ago. it seems like those little tools the government made to promote competition are being used by large corporations to crush each other and run up legal fees. really annoying.
actually, it's not clear to me why libertarians accept the existence of corporations at all.
corporations are entirely the product of the state. "incorporating" is a process in which the state gives a group of people special legal benefits (limited liability, tax benefits) by registering with the state, submitting to certain internal governance models (e.g. you need a board of directors and to issue stock) and paying an annual incorporation fee.
corporations are not just subject to government regulations, they are nothing but government regulation. just because they are regulations designed to help business should not give them a pass
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