| | Professor Machan,
Even sharp, free market supporters, like Michael Kelly Stuart, carry misconceptions that cast corporations in a bad light. In his post above, he said, "Was the protagonist in this book trying to make a statement despising corporations, or was he making a jaded complaint against working for people who hide behind corporate privileges to avoid personal liability so they can do bad things? If this protagonist was otherwise displaying integrity, he could have been making a tired statement against this hypocrisy and misuse of the legal system."
This is an old attack on corporations that comes from the left and is still held by many people who are otherwise supporters of Capitalism. Personal liability is not avoided by incorporation. Incorporation is a form of capitalization, of funding. If private individuals borrow money from a bank and use the money to do something that harms someone, they are liable, but the bank isn't. If those same private individuals formed a corporation, sold stock to get money, and used the money to to do something that harms someone, they are liable, but the shareholders aren't. It is best to visualize the sale of stock as equivalent to 'borrowing' funds.
And the statement about, "...so they can do bad things?" In the real world, there are only the tiniest percentage of businessmen whose motivation is to 'do bad things.' I'm quite sure that there are far fewer bad people as a percentage of successful business people than of those roaming around in the public at large.
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And Jeff Perens made the comment, "Granted the mere fact that a business is large does not guarantee it will be managed by people of bad character, but when you observe almost without exception that that is the case, you have to wonder whether some important principle is at work. Induction, after all, is the basic human method of reasoning. It isn't just exposure to leftist editorials that make such depictions 'seem correct', it's living in the real world of the last 50 years."
I hardly know what to say. I've worked in large and small corporations as either an employee or a consultant for most of my life, and I have relatives and friends that occupy executive positions in corporations, and that statement is just not right. The vast majority of executives I worked with were descent human beings and NOT of bad character. Only a very small number, in my experience, had some significant character flaws.
(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 5/29, 12:23am)
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