[per loin]

If a corporation buys back all its own stock, does it then own itself, rather than being owned by humans?

[brityank]

Bump to find later.

[Scutter]

Interesting article. He neglects to point out how tax policy encourages individuals to work for corporations (i.e. the health care deduction which individuals can't take).

Painting corporations as the root of all evil is something I see on the left-wing whacko sites, though. I find myself rejecting his arguments on that basis alone. Maybe that isn't fair, but my gut says if the left is for it then it doesn't make sense.

[raybbr]

ping

[Always Right]

Is he advocating National Socialism.

[Jaysun]

Conservatives would do well to remember that the next time that the corporations go to their comrades in Congress, demanding more violations of human freedom and more restrictions on individual liberty in order to sustain their vampirish unlives.

Bullsh*t - this is just more liberal tripe.

[A. Pole]

One of the most widely believed myths in America today is the belief that corporations are an inherent part of capitalism. Concomitant with this is the idea that big corporations and big government have an intrinsically hostile relationship and that the stock market is a free market. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Capitalism was already well entrenched and the Industrial Revolution was complete when the U.S. Supreme Court radically altered the concept of the corporate charter in 1886 by ruling that the Southern Pacific Railroad that was a "natural person" under the U.S. Constitution.
[...]
The 1886 ruling trumped these efforts, fulfilling Thomas Jefferson's prescient fears. In a letter to George Logan written on Nov. 12, 1816, he wrote:

I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it's birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws our country.

[...]

Great find!

[Zon]

Lobbyists would have nowhere to go if first pols weren't whoring their power and influence.

The author neglects the obvious cause and effect.

[Wolfie]

Nice hair cut.

[Publius6961]

more pure and efficient strains of capitalism and democracy alike.

I get to stuff like this and I can't evade the feeling that somebody's putting me on.

[Faraday]

But these monied corporations did more than challenge our government, they corrupted it entirely and established a symbiotic relationship with it.

This suggests the author considers the US government as entirely alienated from the people, and, therefore, subject to righteous overthrow. I say, wait just a minute. Whenever an institution is taxed, regulated, constrained, controlled by government policy, it will seek to influence that policy for its benefit. There is nothing sinister about this. The problem is the over-reach of government, not the reaction of corporations to the yoke.

The author does not present an alternative form of relationship by which people may unite their resources to provide social goods and services in the pursuit of a return on their investment. This seems like infantile rebellion, much like Michael Moore.

[Incorrigible]

In a genuinely free market, the owners of small, but growing businesses could simply sell their public shares over the Internet to anyone who wished to invest.

Ahh, to be young and naive again.

[Cooltouch]

I've argued for years that Micro$oft's ultimate goal is to rule the world. So, this sort of article comes as no surprise to me.

[Clintonfatigued]

That's an interesting concept: corporate socialism. Corporations are becoming as bad as the trusts were in the late 1800's. Conservatives need to rethink their pro-business outlook.

[Richard Kimball]

bump