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MrRodgers -> RE: Economic rights...is there such a right ? (4/25/2016 10:06:15 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux
Hence demonstrating that you haven't the *foggiest* idea about corporations.
Corporations let you pool assets, and form both liabilities and profits. This is perhaps the biggest benefit of a corporation. One person has capital - another person has artistic ability - poof a movie production company is formed. Or twenty people pool their funds to buy income producing property.
Second. Corporations are allowed to expense thinks done with a business purpose. Own a car by a company - payment is a deductible expense. Own it individually - not a chance.
Corporations have different tax structures and reporting requirements. Publicly owned - then you then your books are public record, and you have significant reporting requirements. You also have a lower top tax bracket.
Have a single big asset - but lots of family? A corporation gives a method to control inheritance.
Starting a company can qualify you for foreign citizenship.
In other cases, corporations allow you shield your privacy - which I get it - you don't like it. But its a useful function none the less. Donald Trump may not want the publicity of an investment in oil. Setup a private company and run the investment through the company.
Companies can act as a loci, to rationalize and specialize. Suppose company x buys company y. It could then split out all food holdings into company z. The executive in put in charge will have food experience. Movie holdings and solar energy can be broken out into their own structures.
And this barely scratches the surface.
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Whatever business that can be conducted via a corporation can also be, by a private partnership or sole proprietorship which maintains and retains an individual and collective (within the business) financial liability. Hence the creation a few years ago of the LLC, the 'Limited liability' company. A partnership or proprietorship that can limit financial and criminal liability as identified by its very name.
It is an expressly legal given that corporations get away with real criminal acts and financial crimes and survive because as the perpetrator. a corp. and has no individual liability and are only subject to fine and civil sanction.
Bullshit again. Plenty of corporate owners have been prosecuted for illegal activity. And gone to jail. Michael Milliken - the junk bond king. Bernie Maddox.
1744 bankers in the savings and loans debacle in the 80's. The fact that democrats don't want to prosecute their buddies is the fault of democrats, not the law.
And notice the 'C' at the end of LLC? Stands for company. Yep, and LLC is still a company - which you apparently hate. In fact, LLP's, LLC's, Sub-S, Sub-C - they are all (really) just specialized companies.
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Corporations regularly file for bankruptcy and are reorganized to have debt eliminated, something a private partnership or individual cannot do.
Of course they can. Individuals protections vary by state, but generally speaking individuals can shield more assets than corps. House, car, tools of trade etc.
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The corporation is prolific at creating private wealth for its investors only
Right. The purpose of a business is to create wealth. Yah!
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and most often at the expense of society at large
Um, no. Society creates the rules that say under what circumstances a corporation may operate. Regardless of the fact that you don't like it - corporations make your shoes, make your food, make your bed, make your house. Corporations bring you seafood, and power, and your healthcare.
Sounds like a huge benefit to me.
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have no commercial or social so-called compact with society the costly and immoral exception being, the legal framework and protections that society is forced to provide it by law and in being just that, represents the last authoritarian institution of, are legally and morally, the antithesis of, a free country.
Oh and BTW, the founding fathers did not and for the ensuing 60 -70 years, nobody wanted the corporation knowing full well its corruption on society
blah blah blah .. Wrong again.
Google it. Most of the founding father participated in corporations. Washington participated in corporations to build canals, and drain swamps for example.
As for absolving responsibility - no one believes that - so saying hamilton is against as if you just knocked down a real argument.. well its ridiculous.
All of those things you suggest is the reason to form a corporation, can be formed by a partnership or sole proprietorship. It is you that obviously have no knowledge whatsoever about the original corporate regime formed in the US and how the courts, lobbyists and politicians have completely corrupted American corporation at the tremendous and extreme expense politically, financially and socially of society at large. Read it all.
Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these*:
Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
Furthermore:
When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country’s founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.
For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.
States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company’s accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.
But the men running corporations pressed on. Contests over charter were battles to control labor, resources, community rights, and political sovereignty. More and more frequently, corporations were abusing their charters to become conglomerates and trusts. They converted the nation’s resources and treasures into private fortunes, creating factory systems and company towns. Political power began flowing to absentee owners, rather than community-rooted enterprises.
The industrial age forced a nation of farmers to become wage earners, and they became fearful of unemployment–a new fear that corporations quickly learned to exploit. Company towns arose. and blacklists of labor organizers and workers who spoke up for their rights became common. When workers began to organize, industrialists and bankers hired private armies to keep them in line. They bought newspapers to paint businessmen as heroes and shape public opinion. Corporations bought state legislators, then announced legislators were corrupt and said that they used too much of the public’s resources to scrutinize every charter application and corporate operation.
Government spending during the Civil War brought these corporations fantastic wealth. Corporate executives paid “borers” (lobbyists) to infest Congress and state capitals, bribing elected and appointed officials alike. They pried loose an avalanche of government financial largesse. During this time, legislators were persuaded to give corporations limited liability, decreased citizen authority over them, and extended durations of charters.
Attempts were made to keep strong charter laws in place, but with the courts applying legal doctrines that made protection of corporations and corporate property the center of constitutional law, citizen sovereignty was undermined. As corporations grew stronger, government and the courts became easier prey. They freely reinterpreted the U.S. Constitution and transformed common law doctrines.
One of the most severe blows to citizen authority arose out of the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.
Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of “corporate personhood,” thanks to misleading notes of a clerk, the decision subsequently was used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a “natural person.” This story was detailed in “The Theft of Human Rights,” a chapter in Thom Hartmann’s recommended book Unequal Protection.
From that point on, the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect rights of freed slaves, was used routinely to grant corporations constitutional “personhood.” Justices have since struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to protect people from corporate harm based on this illegitimate premise. Armed with these “rights,” corporations increased control over resources, jobs, commerce, politicians, even judges and the law.
A United States Congressional committee concluded in 1941, “The principal instrument of the concentration of economic power and wealth has been the corporate charter with unlimited power….”
Many U.S.-based corporations are now transnational, but the corrupted charter remains the legal basis for their existence. At Reclaim Democracy!, we believe citizens can reassert the convictions of our nation’s founders who struggled successfully to free us from corporate rule in the past. These changes must occur at the most fundamental level — the U.S. Constitution.
HERE
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