From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Oct 05 2002 - 15:49:09 MDT
Alert: Presentation by Ayn Rand Institute defending
the corporation
Phil Osborn 10/05/02
Those of you who have followed the research,
publications and presentations by Anthony Hargis will
be familiar with this from his perspective. I believe
that my understanding is substantially similar;
however, I do not speak for Anthony but only for
myself:
In brief, there are many people who think of
themselves as defenders of the free market who are
also defenders of the corporation. They believe that
the corporation is a market phenomenon, and that all
the problems that we have been seeing exemplified on
the morning news, such as WorldCom, ENRON, etc., etc.,
etc., are the result of evil government bureaucrats
and politicians interfering with natural market
processes. They see the corporate leaders as heros.
The Ayn Rand Institute is clearly one of this mindset.
In fact, the corporation is a child of the state. It
is distinguished from free market businesses by the
limited liability, granted by state fiat, which also
provides that corporation with an identity as a
fictitious legal person. It is the limited liability,
as well as the other state privileges (privi lege –
"private law") which make incorporation so attractive
to businesses. Where else can one act with virtual
impunity and disregard of long-term consequences?
Yet businesses see themselves without other good
options. When you can be hit with arbitrarily high
legal judgments, based on some ignorant or biased
jury, or simply be bankrupted by legal costs
themselves, can you or your investors afford to assume
full liability when your competitors take full
advantage of the corporate option?
Among the market alternatives to the corporation is
the "trust." Trusts were the dominant form of
large-scale business organization through most of the
19th Century. Trusts limited liability to the
Trustees, who had sole responsibility for the actions
of the trust, thus enabling people to invest in shares
of the trust without taking the risk of being wiped
out by lawsuits.
Then a conspiracy of left-wing "Progressives" launched
what was known as "Trust Busting." Their alleged goal
was to eliminate corruption and the excesses resulting
from the huge resources of the big trusts. Their real
goal was to create a seamless integration of big
business and the super state. In fact, they were
financed by many of the super rich who owned or
controlled some of the largest trusts or banking
houses.
(Trust busting was but one piece of their great
scheme, which included also compulsory universal state
indoctrination ("Progressive Education"), Prohibition
(the "War on Drugs" now) and an institutionalized
class system, as well as other disasterous plans, all
aimed at eliminating the individual.)
Under the good and ancient common law, everything is a
tort. People allege damages resulting from the
actions of other people. The job of the court is to
determine how to set things right, as near as
possible. It is not the job of the court to promote
or pursue social, religious or political agendas.
However, the common law cannot survive conquest. When
the Norman conquered Britain, could they afford to
allow the Anglo Saxons to sue their soldiers?
Yet they had to have a legal system and they needed
public acquiesence, if not support. So, we got the
bastardized version of the common law that
incorporated elements of "positive law," such as
criminal penalties and punitive damages. This
perversion of the common law is accepted and
exemplified in the doctrine presented to every
potential juror, that the duty of the jury is to judge
only the facts, not the law of a case.
Under the common law, a trust could be sued like
anyone else, but the damages were limited to the
actual restitution plus costs of the lawsuit. This is
also consistent with the view of government as limited
to that of a servant assigned the job of protecting
the rights of citizens.
The Progressives, however, had a grand vision of the
state as a super-organism with its own mysterious
motives and goals. We individuals were merely the
expendable individual cells of this new creature.
Positive law was to shape and mold individual behavior
to fit those goals. People were to be treated like
laboratory rats, shocked (imprisoned) for bad
behavior.
Under the new Progressive deal, the threats of massive
lawsuits and criminal penalties forced businesses into
the corporate fold, where, in return for limited
liability, they gave up sovereignty and accepted
bureaucratic control. The super-rich supporters of
the "Trust Busting" and corporatization knew that they
would be the puppeteers behind the bureaucrats. The
supposed new responsibility of the corporations would
boil down to those rules and regulations that gave
them a free hand to despoil and plunder, while keeping
their market competition from ever posing a serious
threat.
Now, if you tried to sue a corporation for polluting
the drinking water, you found yourself blocked by the
courts who often ruled that the corporations were
already covered by statutory positive law. Instead
of paying the actual damages to all the actual
victims, the corporation would be hit with a slap on
the wrist fine which went to the state.
Neither the state nor anyone else can make pi equal to
3. Liability does not simply disappear. If one party
does not take responsibility, then others will be
forced to pay the costs when things go wrong. While
the corporate model does not mandate that a
businessman act irresponsibly, it encourages that
behavior by reducing the costs. Those corporations
that take more risks and think more short-term tend to
profit more as well. Fly-by-night con artists have
the advantage when there is no accountability.
Thus, the $trillion calamity we are now facing from
the corporate criminals was inevitable, inextricably
bound up in the subtle theft implicit in the corporate
model.
I suggest that those of you who have an understanding
of this issue and its importance may want to attend
the lecture whose announcement I have posted. The Ayn
Rand Institute represents a body of good philosophical
analysis and has a high credibility with millions of
influential people, based on the works of the late Ayn
Rand herself. I see this position of theirs now as a
mistake on their part, and a perversion of Ayn Rand's
own message, which glorified the individual. This is
a potential opportunity to correct that mistake, or at
least force them to take notice.
For further information on the Ayn Rand Institute,
please go to their website at <www.aynrand.org>. For
an interesting series of insights into the real nature
and function of the corporation, check out <www.johntaylorgatto.com>.
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