1st August 2015, 11:14 AM
A Black Falcon Wrote:And no, the government did not "create corporations", and regardless of how they started, without government today they would take over.
Yes, they did. I researched this and wrote a paper on it. Going back to Roman times, the emperors would recognize certain groups and gave the group itself its own legal entity: It can sue or be sued, make contracts, etc. In the 1500-1600s, the first international business corporations included the two big ones: the Dutch East India Co and the British East India Co, and also some small ones like the Hudson Bay company.
The Dutch parliament authorized this new legal entity to exist, and in England it was the monarchy that declared the existence of such entities. In England, this was called a royal charter. The English royally chartered companies in particular were on occasion temporarily merged or legally forced to serve the military.
The big benefit of a corporation is the characteristic of limited liability. The owners, however many of them, can not be held personally responsible for the actions of the company. This is very convenient. A King could give his buddies a royal charter to form a new legal entity. These guys can build ships, trade with India, Siam, whoever... The King gets a cut via taxes. The King can declare that the company assist the military. And lastly, the King and his friends who own the corp avoid all personal lawsuits and a great deal of the shame when the royally chartered company violates the rights of others. I would say that type of power probably attracts a lot of ruffians to be employees.
I don't know why you disagree. I'm not trying to say the U.S. government created corporations. I'm just saying it is only government (they're in charge of the law) who can grant corporations to legally exist.