How Do You Convince Americans To Accept LESS From the Govt.?

1985 Philadelphia the radical group was MOVE, firebombed by police

Rob's post contains the phrase "if you're a libertarian". Yet all of the libertarians are defending it anyway.

I wouldn't strip it away either, and I'd have no problem saying so if I would. My position as stated repeatedly is that it ought to be conditional.

Thus your post is redundant.

It already is conditional. It's not blanket in any way and limited liability can be pierced.

But no one here believes that you and a few others wouldn't pull it totally or modify it to the point that it is useless.

You're no fan of corporations anyway so why don't you have the balls to admit you'd get rid of it? It's not like we are going to call you names over it because we already call you names over your stupidity.

Because neither you nor Rob wield's the gavel on what a libertarian must believe or how those beliefs must be reflected in the real world, especially when you're obviously just fishing for excuses to impose semi-socialist policies on corporations. I've yet to see a satisfactory reason for why I must risk all of my personal assets to invest some lesser sum in a corporation. What I get instead is a passing reference to a "responsibility" that is never supported in any substantial way.

In this scenario, I don't see why Apostle alone wouldn't be held accountable for his personal actions. That's the whole ideal I'm pushing here.

Would economies be exponentially smaller without limited liability? Probably. But then consider that most of the wealth generated by corporations is held by shareholders and managers, and then consider whether the proposed change would necessarily be such a bad thing for most people.

Because instead of the "wrong" people holding that wealth, nobody would?

You are responsible for your employees actions while they are on the clock.

If you don't like that scenario then just substitute any other scenario where a jury hands out the $10 million dollar award.

And that is not what you are pushing. What you are pushing is a end to limited liability.

Uncle Albert is right: why I must risk all of my personal assets to invest some lesser sum in a corporation

You can not answer that with a straight face. To give UA any type of shield means you support limited liability which throws your entire argument out the window.

And the millions of Americans who own stock?

Smaller economies also equal less jobs.

What you are is not a libertarian. You're a socialist (ie a thief) masquerading as a libertarian.

This is merely a situation I'm defending. This discussion arose when Dayton implied that corporations should not be taxed.

Because I wouldn't. Corporations are useful, though I'd like to regulate them a lot more in some cases. My main problem with them is the one identified in this thread - that they are seen as merely associations of people which have the rights of people.

Ah, Dayton... King of street cred you are.

You have heard satisfactory reasons for that consistent with libertarian philosophy. That you choose to reject or ignore these is your problem.

One more time - if the owners of a business are not responsible for the debts that their business runs up, then it imposes obligations on their creditors. The only way you can deal with that while remaining a consistent libertarian is to change fundamentally the nature of what a corporation is - something you've advocated repeatedly in the past when backed into this corner - or remove limited liability altogether.

That would be between them and their creditors, I should think.

Not so much a change to the nature of limited liability, but to the opportunistic looting imposed on corporations. Massive fines and lawsuit awards, for example. If it's just a matter of defaulting on debt, I'm not seeing why society or any external party should have any influence.

And thus all "responsibility" goes out the window.

I'm sure you'd be seeing it if it was me that owed you $100 and was refusing to pay.

This is what I mean when I say unsupported and insubstantial. Where is the responsibility of the lendee to anyone but the lender? Was the lender mislead into believing that the personal assets of all investors were offered as collateral?

There is no way I would ever rationalize going after everyone who ever lent you a twenty because you owed me $100.

There are forms of creditor other than lenders. I can become a creditor without even wishing to.

Poor example. Those who lenty me a twenty do not own me and are not responsible for my actions. With corporations, shareholders are.

And this is somehow an indictment of limited liability? Might you be getting creative with the concept of "creditor"?

I'm not seeing why that should be, other than because you wish it were so because it implies a larger trough of money.

It is an indictment if the corporation can run up debts to me and then not pay them.

You're not sure why owners of a business should ultimately be responsible for its actions? Who, then?

And running up debts with private lending institutions and then not paying them is a necessary element of limited liability?

I'm not accepting that investing $100k in a billion-dollar company buys me the level of authority over its operations necessary to imply a responsibility for the actions it takes.

This is actually mostly right. Since corporation are taxed, the dividends it pays should not be taxed (because it's a double taxation of the same income).

Corporations are responsible for much that is best in our modern society, so you're right, and regulation is fine, and needed. Of course the key is sensible regulation, but it's too much to ask for.

The chief difference between associations of people that are called NGOs, or foundations, or non-for-profits, or corporations is that corporations that fail in their purpose are usually left to die, whereas the rest live on in apparent perpuity, however often they fail.

It's a necessary consideration, since it can happen.

Why? You didn't have to invest that money. If you buy a share in the company, one would think that you ought to have done sufficient research to satisfy yourself that it's run properly and that it's not going to expose you above a level that you're happy with. Otherwise it's your own fault.

And you didn't answer me. Who is responsible, if not the owners collectively? Is the majority shareholder responsible for the risk taken by all the others? Is management, who don't necessarily own the company at all, responsible for debts created if they make poor decisions?

Nobody appears to be ultimately responsible according to you, meaning that the creditors are shafted, like I said.

But one need not imply the other, so it cannot be accepted as an indictment of the other.

But the choice to invest was the only one I made, and the only one for which I should be held responsibile.

Obviously. What's at issue is what I risk with that choice. I say it is the amount I elected to invest. You seem to be suggesting it's that amount plus whatever else must be taken from the shareholders to compensate for the company's misdeads.

I don't agree that "nobody" would be responsible, just that the jobs of the employees, the assets of the company, and the investments of the shareholders are all that should be at stake, and if it's purely a matter of a private lender accepting these conditions, I fail to see why it's any external party's business.

One implies the possibility of the other, so you need to deal with who is responsible in that eventuality. And you still haven't said who ought to be responsible in the case where someone is owed money who didn't accept the conditions, despite lots of claims as to why various parties shouldn't be.

I deal with private lending contracts with a healthy dose of "buyer beware."

"Who" is just empty symbolism until you start attaching dollar amounts and sending out the bill. If you enter into a contract with a legal entity, only that entity has any responsibility to you. In this case, I would say that covers the company, its assets, and its employees.

Though we agree on the broad topics of taxation and regulation of companies, I'm strongly on the side of fence that the benefits of limited liability far outweigh the costs.

O2C mentioned a single study with equivocal results on the topic of whether there's a chilling effect on investment if the law allows unlimited liability, but without the limit I'd say industries like automobile, airlines, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, purveyors of very hot coffee, and these days even children's toys might never make another product (or would never have gotten off the ground in the first place). A single stockholder with 100 share is too remote from the idiot behind the counter boilling coffee to an "unreasonable" standard for any person to seriously consider investing in a coffee seller.

And if you argue for debt-only capitalization (they don't share in profits so no fair reason to hold them accountable for losses, unless the claim is that the business was undercaptalized in the first place), then you've simply replaced shareholder with bondholders as those left holding the bag, in which case you again will see a lack of investment (assuming unlimited liability was also extended to bondholders).

Argue against private equity if you must as the area of profit taking most concentrated in the hands of the fewest, but in the world of finance you will be told that the return is proportionate to the risk of the businesses going bust, so the fat returns were justified (regarding of how few hands will catch the profits). And you'll also be told that much of the trillion in pension investments hold stakes in private equity through the various PE funds and public companies (KKR, etc).

The other major player, government has consistently proven itself to be among the most inefficient ways to direct investment (thus the chorus of complaints as the US fedgov has during the past year crowded out what is now trillions in private investment).

The difference there being that the Salvation Army is a private charity, but the government is government.

If you don't like the way the SA is spending their money or distributing their charity, you're perfectly free to flip off the bell ringers next Christmas.

I don't like the ways the government is spending my tax dollars, but there's not alot I can do about it except try to vote them out in November.

Now that I have a little more time to read and post on the topic, this scenario is a much better argument for tort reform and better recognition of ownership stake in the law, than for maintaining limited liability.

Plus, if you're stupid enough to hire Liet, you deserve to be taken to the cleaners.

I actually agree with you on that too. But now I'm analysing the situation from a libertarian perspective.

UA still refuses to address the issue of responsibility for a companies debts. And seems to think that creditors would voluntarily submit to limited liability in the absence of a the state gaurantee of same.

Dayton3 agrees: thanks for the correction

- Not a correction, Dayton, just a clarification. You got the basic point right. It wasn't the feds that did this.

I addressed it once, then repeated myself. You're just not accepting my answer.

State guarantee of the credit, or the limited liability?

Damn right. You're dismissing it as "empty symbolism". That's not an answer.

Limited liability. If the state doesn't provide it, you're relying on the creditors to voluntarily sign up for it.

It also wasn't my entire answer.

I don't agree that "nobody" would be responsible, just that the jobs of the employees, the assets of the company, and the investments of the shareholders are all that should be at stake, and if it's purely a matter of a private lender accepting these conditions, I fail to see why it's any external party's business.

This establishes responsibility in any material, meaningful sense. It just follows a more limited standard than simply following the money to the person with the deepest pockets.

Well, yeah. Voluntary is pretty much the only way I would do anything. But once the contract is voluntarily accepted it is a legitimate role of government to enforce the contract.