Just when we think it can't get any worse, we see this sort of crap:
From the article:
File-swappers who distribute a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet can be imprisoned for up to three years.
Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.
And look how they got this thing passed...it rode in on the coattails of this:
Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."
I am on the side of reducing copyright to a more reasonable time-frame. Five years after the death of the author would be plenty, IMHO.
Were I a King of the US, I would declare that getting rid of copyright entirely would be even better. People wrote some pretty good stuff before the concept of copyright existed, so I disagree that it would all disappear after it was wiped o
So, unless everybody wants to agree to my kooky libertarian ideal...
You do know that "libertarian ideals" is what allowed things like the RIAA and MPAA, along with Halliburton and Diebold, to form in the first place, right? Libertarianism is all about the non-intervention of government. That means that the government doesn't interfere with what companies want to do; it espouses the Laissez-faire economic system, which is a total travesty of human thought. The idea that we should be ruled by the dollar is, quite frankly, rather extreme and un-human.
Protection of intellectual property is not something that the government created for the benefit of corporations, it was created for the benefit of the artist that created the work. Allowing corporations freedom to do what they want (the "free market" that is so central to libertarianism) is what created a system where corporations can be considered entities in favorable cases, but not living entities in unfavorable cases (how many "corporations" are put in prison?). Thus, these corporations (record labels) can own a copyright on something (that they didn't even create). This leads to the natural occurance of the corporation (a for-profit "entity") trying to prolong its hold on the material (thereby creating more profit).
Free market is what allowed/will allow corporations the power to do what they want, including spewing tons of pollution into the environment (which would only increase with de-regulation), enforcing censorship (walmart), utilizing sweatshops, and abusing a protection put in place for individual people's property rights (copyright).
Protection of intellectual property is not something that the government created for the benefit of corporations, it was created for the benefit of the artist that created the work.
No way buddy. Copyright's were invented for people who benefit by artists and inventors and by "people who benefit" I mean regular people. The system is in place to reward artists and inventors just enough to make it worth it for them to do what they do. The point of the system is to create innovation, NOT to make artists rich off their work although our economic system theoretically should do that so its win-win for average people and artists.
My bad, what you say is true. However, you're basically talking semantics: whether copyright's for the benefit of "the people" or the artist is essentially the same thing, because under this (copyright) thought process the people would not benefit if the artist didn't and the artist wouldn't benefit if the people didn't. Meaning, there wouldn't be [as much] art/invention without the artist making money (no motivation), and the artist wouldn't make money if the people didn't benefit from the product (who'd b
Well, authors are a subset of the people, but you're missing the other half of the main issue, I think.
Merely encouraging creation is not enough to benefit the public. The public has two equal interests, and creation is only one of them. You have to satisfy the other one maximally as well: placing works in the public domain as rapidly as possible.
After all, the public is best off when all the works that could be created are, and when they are all free in both the beer and speech senses. We might not have
As for Britany Spears... letting that knowledge do all the good it's capable of.
Some people might say that Britney Spears' music hasn't done any good, even that it's been harmful... but without it we wouldn't have Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics. [britneyspears.ac] So it's done at least SOME good. Chuckle.
Allowing corporations freedom to do what they want (the "free market" that is so central to libertarianism)
Actually, Libertarianism is against the concept of the corporation. A corporation is supposed to be formed to serve a public good. Libertarianism supports allowing the individual the freedom to do what they want.
Copyright was created for the good of the general public. It rewards authors only to modify their behavior. Authors don't have natural rights and are not owed jack shit.
By the same token though Libertarianism would not condone Government intervention to PREVENT copyright enforcement either. As a matter of fact if the government didn't approve of copyright and declared it null and void, the RIAA and MPAA couldn't do squat about people sharing media.
Of course they can. But every time you buy a book or CD or DVD, you'll have to sign a contract as part of the bargain. And, guess what, it'll be even more draconian than regular copyright law would have been. Think fair use defenses would apply? I don't think so...
Governments, for all their faults, create a degree of balance. The scales may be tipped towards the content producers right now, but the situation could be far, far, worse.
Besides which, if you don't want to be imprisoned for willful copyright
And thus, the RIAA and MPAA would be avoided in favor of non-draconian music and movie companies, and would soon change their policies or go out of business.
By the way, this logical error is called a false dichotomy - ignoring all but two possibilities in a multitude.
The RIAA and MPAA do not produce content, they're industry groups that represent the vast majority of content producers. So the RIAA and MPAA wouldn't be "avoided" any more than they are today. How do you avoid the RIAA and MPAA these days, beyond starting your own music publisher or studio and not joining them. Ooooooh, the RIAA and MPAA must be quaking in their boots about the chances of millions of artist-hating slashbots doing that. Can't wait to see your business plans: "1. Hire artists. 2. ????. 3. No
Can't wait to see your business plans: "1. Hire artists. 2. ????. 3. Not pay them!"
I think the RIAA would be pissed at you for ripping off their business model, actually.
On topic, your arguement is reasonable. Yes, people need to eat. If you want something, you should be paying for it, so the artist that created it can pay his bills. The problem with the current system is that the artist that created the new album that Joe Suburbia just downloaded isn't getting paid his fair dues. It's been broken down be
Somewhat wrong. It is the XXAAs that are using the government to further their special interests. They are hijacking the laws and the courts in order to enforce their prejudices on the people. Their action couldn't be further from what Libertarianism means.
Such corporations couldn't exist at all without the government giving them the legal right to exist. As a libertarian, the idea of giving a corportation any of the rights of a person is completely disgusting to me.
Libertarianism espouses the Free Market! as the solution to the problem of economy! That means that corporations can do whatever the F*ck they want, and the government won't do a single thing to stop them so long as it doesn't affect any citizens property rights. True libertarianism is dead in the water. It is pure capitalism, which is as dead as pure communism.
If you think corporations are bad now, you wouldn't want to see what they look like under a Libertarian system.
Under a true libertarian system, corporations would still cause problems, but not the way they do now. For one, corporations wouldn't be able to lobby and bribe the government to pass laws favorable to them, and then use the court system to enforce these laws through barratry. "Intellectual property" only exists because the government allows it. If the government decides to change the copyright term to 10 years, it's free to do so. Of course, that won't happen now because that would piss off a bunch of
> "Intellectual property" only exists because the government > allows it.
Private property only exists in the presence of a government that recognizes it. Without the coercive nature of the government there is no such thing as ownership, only possession.
Private property law is legal codification of what is a fundamental principle of the physical universe. I.e., that a thing can only exist in one place at any given moment. Ownership can be protected with force, property law is the government wielding said force on your behalf.
Limited liability corporations and IP law are legal fictions created more or less out of thin air.
The physical universe doesn't have a notion of "right to possession". That notion is pretty much a legal fiction created more or less out of thin air. While I may posses something unilaterally, ownership, as a concept, only makes sense within the context of some sort of collective agreement by everyone around me (i.e. a government) this is true as much for physical property as "intellectual" property.
Only within a legal system can I own something that is physically within the possession of someone else-
It's impossible to argue that the powerful would have less power, since that's an absurdity. As for the rich, there will be less of a social divide because of less taxation and government waste which enriches the whole of society, and because corporations will not get special treatment - they will be regulated as they should be in exchange for the limited liability they are granted. Proprietorships, on the other hand, will receive the full support of the law, since they are undertaking far more risk than
As I understand it, it would be impossible to see what they look like under a pure Libertarian System, since they wouldn't exist as such. The artificial construction of a corporation as a seperate entity is entirely an act of government. In a libertarian society, they would never have been made.
On the other hand, you might still find shares and stock for sale, but the owners would almost certainly keep a closer eye on what the company is doing, since any property they personally own could be taken to p
Really? I thought that corporations were just around in order to have limited liability. That is the basic extent of how they're considered a person.
Basically, unlike proprietorships or partnerships in which liability of the firm is distributed to its owners, a corporation has its own legal identity separate from the people who own shares of its stock; if a corporation suffers losses, it has to pay debts, not its owners. By doing this, stockholder liability is only limited to what they've invested in the firm (not their entire fortune) whereas proprietorships and partnerships can potentially have unlimited liabilities (someone makes a big mistake) meaning that entire fortunes can be collected to pay debts.
The catch is that corporations, existing as a legal identity are taxed whereas proprietorships and partnerships are not... This means that owners are taxed on corporate income in addition to the corporation being taxed on the same income (or double taxation).
So this is the extent to which a corporation is considered a person... it's purely financial. So how exactly does a purely financial construct resemble a psychopath? I mean, if you're embracing an abstraction of that degree, why not extend the argument to basically anything centered around a theoretical basis? I'm curious, what would be the psychological evaluation of the/. copyright opposition crowd (considering that it seems to oppose the RIAA/MPAA, but supports copyright enforcement concerning GNU efforts)?
Go ahead and call me a capitalist, republican, conservative, bible-thumping pig as that seems to be the common response here (to opposing opinions of open minds of course).
Note: I did not make any statements in the hopes of diminishing open source efforts (as I would be quite the hypocrite considering I made this post using Linux and Mozilla). I just get tired of the whole faceless corporations are evil and that's that argument. Corporations have problems (such as the issue of corporate governance) but absurd comparisons to psychopaths have got to go.
Here is an interesting article about how corporations became 'Persons' [uuworld.org]
Perhaps you won't agree with some of the conclusions the author has drawn, but the basic point that corporations have a lot more rights/powers than what is needed to allow for limited liability is pretty obvious. And comparing them to psychopaths really isn't absurd. They are treated, legally, as another person like you and me, but they don't act like normal people. Perhaps you don't want to say they act like psychopaths, but I'd like to hear a better description of why they act how they do, and and explanation why their behavior would be ok for a person with the same rights.
As I said in response to another poster, corporations, being a purely financial identity, have no moral obligations or feelings because they have no identity beyond a financial basis. Now, their actions are tied to the public because their existence is dependent on receiving financial support from the public. This means that the actions of a corporation fall under the responsibility of the public (society). If the public ceases to support the corporation, it will fail, if it continues support of the corp
Well, I think the argument goes something like this:
First off, you have to think of the corporation as an entity. In reality it is a collection of individual people with different values serving many different roles but generally trying to accomplish the same thing. For the purposes of this discussion, though, we think of a corporation as a single entity owned by the stockholders.
As an individual, you make many decisions every day. Most of their decisions are mundane. Some of them, though, have ethical an
Indeed, I would qualify what you wrote as a more compelling argument, but I would still have issues with some of your arguments:
There is a certain sentiment that says that a corporation has a responsibility to produce maximum return for its shareholders. If they don't, the shareholders can sue the company and collect. That means if an employee falls down a mineshaft and the rescue effort would cost more than the settlement to the next of kin, the company is NOT ALLOWED to do the "right thing". The sharehol
My point wasn't that society created corporations, it was that society actively supports corporations. This is due to the simple fact that by contributing economically to a corporation despite any actions performed by the corporation, society is in effect endorsing the actions (regardless of how questionable) of the corporation. This is inherently different from a psychopath which (as you can argue) may be the result of society, but is not actively supported by society. So my answer to the question of wh
So my answer to the question of whether society wants DVD region coding, a monopolistic Microsoft, and sweatshop labor would be a resounding yes. If social consensus was against such actions, then there would be no way that a corporation embracing such acts could survive.
I don't believe that this argument takes into account corporations supporting corporations. Arguably the corporations doing the most evil are either supported by a monopoly (SBC) or supported by
Corporations have one purpose and one purpose only. Profit. They exist only to enrich the shareholders.
Since the shareholders are safely insulated from the day to day actions of the corporation they feel no guilt when the corporation does something immoral. They don't go to jail when the corporation does something illegal. Only recently, and only in certain circumstances, have corporate officers been held legally and financially responsible for the actions of their corporation.
Since the shareholders are safely insulated from the day to day actions of the corporation they feel no guilt when the corporation does something immoral.
Actually, they aren't safely insulated from the actions of the corporation, they are just less susceptible to excessive losses on the corporation's part (read limited liability). As I stated, the price of this limited liability is that the rewards are also smaller (you get taxed on income and so does the corporation). Since excessive immorality would (
I'm going to rain on your parade. Corporations/businesses exzisted LONG before government. Especially this one. The government doesn't grant us anything. WE GRANT THE GOVERNMENT ITS RIGHTS. PERIOD! Didn't you ever take an American History/Civics class?
Good lord, what are the schools teaching kids these days?!
Actually, no. The word "corporations" comes from the legal idea that the company is incorporated (made into a body) that is a legal entity/person. That whole process definitely is dependent on the existence of a government.
And if you examine US history a little closer you will discover that all of Columbus's voyages, and all of the original colonies where chartered businesses with writs from their respective monarchs empowering them to form a company to sail across the Atlantic. At that point there was the
"Corporations/businesses exzisted LONG before government."
If you define "business" as "bartering, then you're right.
But corporations are a relatively recent invention as compared to government. Many people today point to the Dutch East India company as the first modern limited liability company. If I remember my 9th grade history correctly, it was set up to allow multiple investors the ability to pool risk and reward, since ocean voyages were very costly.
WE GRANT THE GOVERNMENT ITS RIGHTS. PERIOD! Didn't you ever take an American History/Civics class?
Didn't you ever walk out your front door? That statement is a limited truth at best. We endow a political body with the power to rule and make decisions for us. We have a say in that body's makeup, and can attempt to influence its actions, but lobby groups, foreign governments, and various factions within the government itself can do the same. The government's rights are then what the weight of the influe
We do not grant the government rights under a representative republic. We elect representatives, who are then to act as a means for which the people to voice their will to the government. Unfortunately, it seems that the people no longer wish to speak to their government, and are more content to let corporations sway their representatives.
Face it. What we essentially have now is a government that ignores the people, mostly because A) the people have chosen not to speak to their representatives any longer,
Just a thought, but if corporations are "people," or entities that have been granted an equivelency to people, then "We the People" now includes corporations.
With our system of influence being counted in dollars as much (or more) than votes, the "corporate" entities are speaking more loudly to their representatives than most of the fleshy ones. (Who are, technically also "corporate," since they have bodies.)
Money isn't supposed to sway the judgement of our representatives, but we must be honest with ourse
Sheeple!
They think they elect leaders. The people running for office tell them that they'll be "strong leaders" and then the idiots vote for them.
In the United States we do NOT elect leaders. In the United States, we elect REPRESENTATIVES. That is someone who represents you and your views. Their opinions, views, standpoints are irrelevent. If they are imposing their "vision" on you, then you have elected the wrong person and should kick them out.
I personally think that anyone voting for a leader shou
Such corporations couldn't exist at all without the government giving them the legal right to exist. As a libertarian, the idea of giving a corportation any of the rights of a person is completely disgusting to me.
I don't understand this point. A corporation is just a group of people (the shareholders) cooperating to pursuit wealth. If people are allowed to work to further their own wealth, how can you prevent people from cooperating in doing so? Send out the police as soon as two people exchange ideas a
>The only right that the corporation has that individuals don't is limited liability
And they should not. If you own a piece of a company that goes belly up, you should have to pay their bills. If you are expecting the benefits of pooling resources, you should also take the risks.
I am so sick of people claiming that Libertarians would give corps free reign. Under Libertarianism, corporations would no longer exist. Businesses would all be sole proprieterships or partnerships, where the owners have control, responsibility, and liability of them.
You do know that "libertarian ideals" is what allowed things like the RIAA and MPAA, along with Halliburton and Diebold, to form in the first place, right?
You are making the all-too-common mistake of confusing "libertarianism" with "corporate anarchy."
Understandable and forgivable, but please become more informed before accusing me of being a corporate shill. That would be great, thanks.
First of all, stop capitalizing "libertarianism" when speaking of my political philosophy. I am a libertarian, not a member of the Libertarian Party.
Secondly, perhaps you should do a little more reading on "what libertarianism truly means" before you start lecturing me on it, because you clearly only half-understand most of the principles.
Thirdly, I never said anything which advocates your ad absurdum scenarios. Stop knocking down straw men and acting like you've proven anything.
First of all, stop capitalizing "libertarianism" when speaking of my political philosophy. I am a libertarian, not a member of the Libertarian Party.
Secondly, perhaps you should do a little more reading on "what libertarianism truly means" before you start lecturing me on it, because you clearly only half-understand most of the principles.
Thirdly, I never said anything which advocates your ad absurdum scenarios. Stop knocking down straw men and acting like you've proven anything.
True to form for the current Slashdot style, moderators have put more effort into marking posts "Troll" and "Flamebait" rather than modding all your posts Insightful.
Why? Who knows. But you're making my friends lists, so I can see your posts in the future.
Except that they can't form a monopoly. Monopolies are just about always government granted in one way or another. Many large companies have monopoly power because the income tax smacks down on new and small companies. Others are explicit monopolies, like the Tennessee Valley Authority.
You're trying to explain what would happen under a libertarian government using the rules of our non-libertarian government. Libertarian capitalism is survival of the fittest, not the largest and most well-connected like
Libertarianism isn't about the "non-intervention" of government -- it's about a minimal government that, like any other government, should intervene in any activity that countermands its laws.
"That means that the government doesn't interfere with what companies want to do"
False. In the case of ANY libertarian ideal, contract law is a central tenet and must be enforced. The amazing thing is that, in the absence of overbearing bureaucracy, people tend to self-organize rather well and write (and sign) good c
Libertarianism isn't about the "non-intervention" of government -- it's about a minimal government that, like any other government, should intervene in any activity that countermands its laws.
Yes, but the reasons why a libertarian government would become involved in the economy are very few: infringment of personal/property rights. That's about it. Many things that are regulated now - pollution, monopolies, rules against price fixing, etc - would not exist. These things in-themselves wouldn't be illegal.
"Yes, but the reasons why a libertarian government would become involved in the economy are very few: infringment of personal/property rights."
Yes, that's true.
"Many things that are regulated now - pollution, monopolies, rules against price fixing, etc - would not exist."
You'd have to be infringing someone else's individual (or corporate, but from an economic perspective, same thing in this instance) rights by disallowing them from, say, agreeing with another person/company on prices. Don't like the pric
"unprecedented growth in wealth, standards of living, lifespans, health, comfort, and scientific development, but feel free to argue against those if you find them, too, to be un-human and extreme."
Well, these are also a function of the input of absolutely massive amounts of really really cheap energy, not just a political system. There's physics and thermodynamics active here also.
Any politcal system which can rapidly exploit available fossil fuels and other resouirces is perfectly capable of accruing t
"Well, these are also a function of the input of absolutely massive amounts of really really cheap energy..."
Anything that can be done needs resources -- there's some immediate enabling factor you can point to as a direct catalyst for anything that gets done, so that doesn't help explain anything here.
Moreover, that cheap energy is, by and large, being produced not by the US, but by other countries that sell it in the larger global marketplace. Therefore, it's not a valid explanation of why the US is ahea
I myself thought about the idea that the same kind of people who run meat packing plants (I hope you like minority with your cheeseburger) could concievably run other institutions like firefighting, police, and highway construction/maintinence.
Then I snap out of it and realize that most of these things WERE run by companies at SOME point, and it was such a horrible idea, we changed it.:P
We saw what libertarianism brought with the industrial revolution. I don't care to go back to that kind of world, where
Actually in a Libertarian system, corporations would not exist. It does espous the Laissez-faire economic system, between individuals (not trusts, not corporations). It espouses responsibility. You can't evade responsibility and liability for your actions by hiding behind a corporation. If you conduct your business to cause harm, YOU will be responsible. YOU will be liable. Your company will NOT be treated as the guilty party. You WILL be. Having corporations run everything is much closer to Communism than L
I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents
become better people as a result of practicing it.
- Joe Mullally, computer salesman
Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)
Just when we think it can't get any worse, we see this sort of crap:
From the article:
Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.
And look how they got this thing passed...it rode in on the coattails of this:
Also from the article:
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
I am on the side of reducing copyright to a more reasonable time-frame. Five years after the death of the author would be plenty, IMHO.
Were I a King of the US, I would declare that getting rid of copyright entirely would be even better. People wrote some pretty good stuff before the concept of copyright existed, so I disagree that it would all disappear after it was wiped o
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:0)
You do know that "libertarian ideals" is what allowed things like the RIAA and MPAA, along with Halliburton and Diebold, to form in the first place, right? Libertarianism is all about the non-intervention of government. That means that the government doesn't interfere with what companies want to do; it espouses the Laissez-faire economic system, which is a total travesty of human thought. The idea that we should be ruled by the dollar is, quite frankly, rather extreme and un-human.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Free market is what allowed/will allow corporations the power to do what they want, including spewing tons of pollution into the environment (which would only increase with de-regulation), enforcing censorship (walmart), utilizing sweatshops, and abusing a protection put in place for individual people's property rights (copyright).
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
No way buddy. Copyright's were invented for people who benefit by artists and inventors and by "people who benefit" I mean regular people. The system is in place to reward artists and inventors just enough to make it worth it for them to do what they do. The point of the system is to create innovation, NOT to make artists rich off their work although our economic system theoretically should do that so its win-win for average people and artists.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:3)
Merely encouraging creation is not enough to benefit the public. The public has two equal interests, and creation is only one of them. You have to satisfy the other one maximally as well: placing works in the public domain as rapidly as possible.
After all, the public is best off when all the works that could be created are, and when they are all free in both the beer and speech senses. We might not have
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:3, Funny)
Some people might say that Britney Spears' music hasn't done any good, even that it's been harmful... but without it we wouldn't have Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics. [britneyspears.ac] So it's done at least SOME good. Chuckle.
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Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Actually, Libertarianism is against the concept of the corporation. A corporation is supposed to be formed to serve a public good. Libertarianism supports allowing the individual the freedom to do what they want.
WRONG! (Score:2)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1, Insightful)
Governments, for all their faults, create a degree of balance. The scales may be tipped towards the content producers right now, but the situation could be far, far, worse.
Besides which, if you don't want to be imprisoned for willful copyright
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
I think the RIAA would be pissed at you for ripping off their business model, actually.
On topic, your arguement is reasonable. Yes, people need to eat. If you want something, you should be paying for it, so the artist that created it can pay his bills. The problem with the current system is that the artist that created the new album that Joe Suburbia just downloaded isn't getting paid his fair dues. It's been broken down be
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
If you think corporations are bad now, you wouldn't want to see what they look like under a Libertarian system.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
> allows it.
Private property only exists in the presence of a government that recognizes it. Without the coercive nature of the government there is no such thing as ownership, only possession.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Limited liability corporations and IP law are legal fictions created more or less out of thin air.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Only within a legal system can I own something that is physically within the possession of someone else-
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
On the other hand, you might still find shares and stock for sale, but the owners would almost certainly keep a closer eye on what the company is doing, since any property they personally own could be taken to p
Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, unlike proprietorships or partnerships in which liability of the firm is distributed to its owners, a corporation has its own legal identity separate from the people who own shares of its stock; if a corporation suffers losses, it has to pay debts, not its owners. By doing this, stockholder liability is only limited to what they've invested in the firm (not their entire fortune) whereas proprietorships and partnerships can potentially have unlimited liabilities (someone makes a big mistake) meaning that entire fortunes can be collected to pay debts.
The catch is that corporations, existing as a legal identity are taxed whereas proprietorships and partnerships are not... This means that owners are taxed on corporate income in addition to the corporation being taxed on the same income (or double taxation).
So this is the extent to which a corporation is considered a person... it's purely financial. So how exactly does a purely financial construct resemble a psychopath? I mean, if you're embracing an abstraction of that degree, why not extend the argument to basically anything centered around a theoretical basis? I'm curious, what would be the psychological evaluation of the /. copyright opposition crowd (considering that it seems to oppose the RIAA/MPAA, but supports copyright enforcement concerning GNU efforts)?
Go ahead and call me a capitalist, republican, conservative, bible-thumping pig as that seems to be the common response here (to opposing opinions of open minds of course).
Note: I did not make any statements in the hopes of diminishing open source efforts (as I would be quite the hypocrite considering I made this post using Linux and Mozilla). I just get tired of the whole faceless corporations are evil and that's that argument. Corporations have problems (such as the issue of corporate governance) but absurd comparisons to psychopaths have got to go.
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you won't agree with some of the conclusions the author has drawn, but the basic point that corporations have a lot more rights/powers than what is needed to allow for limited liability is pretty obvious. And comparing them to psychopaths really isn't absurd. They are treated, legally, as another person like you and me, but they don't act like normal people. Perhaps you don't want to say they act like psychopaths, but I'd like to hear a better description of why they act how they do, and and explanation why their behavior would be ok for a person with the same rights.
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:1)
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:1, Insightful)
First off, you have to think of the corporation as an entity. In reality it is a collection of individual people with different values serving many different roles but generally trying to accomplish the same thing. For the purposes of this discussion, though, we think of a corporation as a single entity owned by the stockholders.
As an individual, you make many decisions every day. Most of their decisions are mundane. Some of them, though, have ethical an
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:1)
There is a certain sentiment that says that a corporation has a responsibility to produce maximum return for its shareholders. If they don't, the shareholders can sue the company and collect. That means if an employee falls down a mineshaft and the rescue effort would cost more than the settlement to the next of kin, the company is NOT ALLOWED to do the "right thing". The sharehol
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:1)
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have an argument or two to contribute
I don't believe that this argument takes into account corporations supporting corporations. Arguably the corporations doing the most evil are either supported by a monopoly (SBC) or supported by
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:1)
Corporations have one purpose and one purpose only. Profit. They exist only to enrich the shareholders.
Since the shareholders are safely insulated from the day to day actions of the corporation they feel no guilt when the corporation does something immoral. They don't go to jail when the corporation does something illegal. Only recently, and only in certain circumstances, have corporate officers been held legally and financially responsible for the actions of their corporation.
A corporation gives it's lea
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:1)
Actually, they aren't safely insulated from the actions of the corporation, they are just less susceptible to excessive losses on the corporation's part (read limited liability). As I stated, the price of this limited liability is that the rewards are also smaller (you get taxed on income and so does the corporation). Since excessive immorality would (
Re:Corporations are psychopaths? (Score:3, Informative)
Not so. "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." [wikipedia.org]
>I'm curious, what would be the psychological evaluation of the
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)
Good lord, what are the schools teaching kids these days?!
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
And if you examine US history a little closer you will discover that all of Columbus's voyages, and all of the original colonies where chartered businesses with writs from their respective monarchs empowering them to form a company to sail across the Atlantic. At that point there was the
Nonsense (Score:2)
If you define "business" as "bartering, then you're right.
But corporations are a relatively recent invention as compared to government. Many people today point to the Dutch East India company as the first modern limited liability company. If I remember my 9th grade history correctly, it was set up to allow multiple investors the ability to pool risk and reward, since ocean voyages were very costly.
If we go further back I think the first real cor
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Didn't you ever walk out your front door? That statement is a limited truth at best. We endow a political body with the power to rule and make decisions for us. We have a say in that body's makeup, and can attempt to influence its actions, but lobby groups, foreign governments, and various factions within the government itself can do the same. The government's rights are then what the weight of the influe
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Face it. What we essentially have now is a government that ignores the people, mostly because A) the people have chosen not to speak to their representatives any longer,
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
With our system of influence being counted in dollars as much (or more) than votes, the "corporate" entities are speaking more loudly to their representatives than most of the fleshy ones. (Who are, technically also "corporate," since they have bodies.)
Money isn't supposed to sway the judgement of our representatives, but we must be honest with ourse
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Trade existed before governments. Corporations did not.
>The government doesn't grant us anything.
True, but it does grant corporations existence. Human beings have rights, corporations do not.
>WE GRANT THE GOVERNMENT ITS RIGHTS. PERIOD!
How is this a contradiction to what I said above?
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
I don't understand this point. A corporation is just a group of people (the shareholders) cooperating to pursuit wealth. If people are allowed to work to further their own wealth, how can you prevent people from cooperating in doing so? Send out the police as soon as two people exchange ideas a
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Limited liability is nothing to sneeze at.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
And they should not. If you own a piece of a company that goes belly up, you should have to pay their bills. If you are expecting the benefits of pooling resources, you should also take the risks.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
I am so sick of people claiming that Libertarians would give corps free reign. Under Libertarianism, corporations would no longer exist. Businesses would all be sole proprieterships or partnerships, where the owners have control, responsibility, and liability of them.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
You are making the all-too-common mistake of confusing "libertarianism" with "corporate anarchy."
Understandable and forgivable, but please become more informed before accusing me of being a corporate shill. That would be great, thanks.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, perhaps you should do a little more reading on "what libertarianism truly means" before you start lecturing me on it, because you clearly only half-understand most of the principles.
Thirdly, I never said anything which advocates your ad absurdum scenarios. Stop knocking down straw men and acting like you've proven anything.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
The only reason I'm bot
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Why? Who knows. But you're making my friends lists, so I can see your posts in the future.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
You're trying to explain what would happen under a libertarian government using the rules of our non-libertarian government. Libertarian capitalism is survival of the fittest, not the largest and most well-connected like
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2, Insightful)
"That means that the government doesn't interfere with what companies want to do"
False. In the case of ANY libertarian ideal, contract law is a central tenet and must be enforced. The amazing thing is that, in the absence of overbearing bureaucracy, people tend to self-organize rather well and write (and sign) good c
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Yes, but the reasons why a libertarian government would become involved in the economy are very few: infringment of personal/property rights. That's about it. Many things that are regulated now - pollution, monopolies, rules against price fixing, etc - would not exist. These things in-themselves wouldn't be illegal.
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Yes, that's true.
"Many things that are regulated now - pollution, monopolies, rules against price fixing, etc - would not exist."
You'd have to be infringing someone else's individual (or corporate, but from an economic perspective, same thing in this instance) rights by disallowing them from, say, agreeing with another person/company on prices. Don't like the pric
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Well, these are also a function of the input of absolutely massive amounts of really really cheap energy, not just a political system. There's physics and thermodynamics active here also.
Any politcal system which can rapidly exploit available fossil fuels and other resouirces is perfectly capable of accruing t
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:1)
Anything that can be done needs resources -- there's some immediate enabling factor you can point to as a direct catalyst for anything that gets done, so that doesn't help explain anything here.
Moreover, that cheap energy is, by and large, being produced not by the US, but by other countries that sell it in the larger global marketplace. Therefore, it's not a valid explanation of why the US is ahea
Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA (Score:2)
Then I snap out of it and realize that most of these things WERE run by companies at SOME point, and it was such a horrible idea, we changed it.
We saw what libertarianism brought with the industrial revolution. I don't care to go back to that kind of world, where
Wrong on Libertarianism (Score:2)
Having corporations run everything is much closer to Communism than L