This is the second installment of my series on corporations and profit. This piece will focus on understanding the nature of a "corporation" as well as an exploration of how large-scale enterprise might be accomplished in a Voluntary society. The first piece, which explores the idea of "obscene profits" from the perspective of the mechanics of profit can be found here.
It is entirely likely that, left or right, if you consider yourself a politically conscious and ethical person in modern society, you almost certainly consider "corporations" to be one of the great evils -- if not the Great Evil -- of our time. If you have a dash of capitalist economic knowledge, you might temper that with the qualifier of "crony capitalist" in front of "corporation" and be a bit closer to the truth, but even then the concept of what a corporation is and does and its relationship to the state is often misunderstood.
"Corporate person-hood" is railed against without understanding the what, how and why of it; just vague anger that those "evil corporations" are treated with the same rights as people. How dare they!?
People toss out ideas like 90% or even 100% taxes on corporate profits (or worse still, to tax gross income rather than profit) with no idea how destructive this would be or, even if they've an inkling, why it would be destructive. All that is known is that those Evil Corporations are experiencing profits in the billions while minimum wage workers (supposedly) starve.
A corporation is, most simply, a box to put money into so that employees can be employed, expenses paid, regulations met and capital for future business is accumulated all before the money to meet those ends is paid to the owner's personal income. More officially, a corporation is a fictional legal entity constructed to serve as an "invisible man" to hold income, pay taxes and serve as the liable entity for the entire enterprise. It serves as the person responsible for following business regulations (hence, "corporate person-hood") which cannot ethically or practically be held against a private individual.
A corporation is a creation of a state to secure a legal reification over a business enterprise which, being an abstract, would otherwise be impossible to control or regulate. Consider the fact that of the US Federal Register's over 80,000 pages of regulations, most purportedly apply only to corporations. However, imagine if those all applied, instead, to you. You are then responsible for following -- and suffer the consequences for breaking -- all those rules that currently are met by a corporation. You litter at work? Your employer is no longer responsible, you are.
The corporation acts as the responsible party; however, in order to fairly prosecute any case it is also necessary to recognize the accused party as having at the least some basic legal rights -- hence, again, "corporate person-hood" and the whole Citizens United fiasco.
A corporation acts as a box in which the business enterprise's capital accumulates, allowing taxes, expenses and payroll to be paid prior to any collection by the owner(s) as personal income. This allows the enterprise to be taxed in addition to its owner.
A corporation is, finally, a means of apportioning a business enterprise, in the form stock shares, among its owners proportional to their capital contribution to the enterprise.
A corporation is, in short, completely and totally tied up in the state, the state's doll allowing it to collect a far larger share of taxes and to regulate the business far beyond what could be expected of any individuals to be capable of knowing, let alone following. The state and the corporation are inseparable.
So why would I, the "anarcho"-capitalist, support such a thing!? How dare I call myself an "anarchist" and support that statist monstrosity!? Simple. I don't. I do not believe "corporations", as we know them today, are at all necessary or fit to "exist".
A "corporation" is as much a reification fallacy as a "state" or "nation". It's an imaginary box person created solely for the needs of the state.
This is not to say I oppose large (or even global) scale enterprise. Rather that such enterprises would simply be agreements to exercise shares of ownership over an enterprise. How they might conduct or secure such share is entirely their business. State involvement, however, is unnecessary. No invisible man. No magic box. Just people agreeing to work together in whatever way(s) they choose. Voluntarily.
Thomas Shirk is a computer programmer, Voluntaryist and aspiring philosopher. Please come back to his blog or follow him on Facebook and Steemit for regular updates on Voluntaryism, capitalism and other philosophical insights
