Corporations

Humans, especially but not only civilized humans, are all engaged in various cooperative, collaborative, and collective enterprises. These various types of corporations, as they are sometimes called in economics, present some challenges to classical economic theory, due to the fact that they inhibit perfect capitalistic competition.

They are also uncongenial to the various libertarian and Randian ideologues, since they don't comport well with their fantasy universes.

Yes, you guessed it. I am a bit provoked by a bit of libertarian snark in the comments. Collectivism is their nastiest curse word I suppose. There is some historical provocation. Some of the worst communist crimes were committed in the establishment of various so-called "collective" enterprises - really enslavement by the state. If you want to equate all forms of enforced cooperation with the worst evils of communism, you are making an unreasonable extrapolation.

On the other hand, if you want to pretend that any form of cooperation other than purely voluntary is an offense against liberty, you are living in the wrong universe - or at least are a member of the wrong species.

Involuntary cooperation is an evil to the extent that it is unnecessary, restricts fundamental liberties, or is manifestly unfair. If you guess from this that I don't have much sympathy for anti-tax fanatics or those who believe it's their God-given right to destroy the planet you just might be right.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more