Left demands

[Henry C.K. Liu]

I would like to carry Tom Conduit's perceptive point a step further by offering reasoning why public ownership of
corporations does not lead to socialist goals.
A corporation is legally an "individual."  The legal concept of a corporation is to facilitate the operation of a
complex and diverse business enterprise that requires a multitude of individuals as if it were a single "person".
Thus the corporate form of business organization is fundamentally a devise to transform large complex social activities
into private individualistic entities, thus preventing the natural evolution of socialist structures within the
capitalistic arena.
Publicly owned corporations are already not a rarity in America and their records, as measure against socialists goals
on issues of labor policy, community welfare, environmental responsibility, etc., have been not only below minimum
standards but also countervailing toward social progress.
The fact is that a corporate structure legally requires an enterprise to operate in accordance to corporate rules,
namely: maximizing shareholder value through maximizing return on capital, minimize labor cost (including benefits and
protection) and environmental cost, etc., within an empowering process based exclusively on property ownership, toward
an operational objective of squeezing transactional surplus in the form of corporate profit through systemic
sub-optimization, leaving issues of community welfare and public good to the market place or to government regulation.
Even nonprofit corporations are misnomers.  Their privileged tax status does not prevent them from profit making, but
only from the requirement of distributing profits to shareholders, thus making them empires ruled by frequently
self-serving management.  Public authorities are equally anti-socialistic in their operational modes, a favaorite of
fascism
Unlike co-operatives, which are based of the principle of cooperation, corporations operate on the principle of
competition.
Competition, like preparation for war, does increase efficiency up to a point. But like preparation for war, the final
goal is more destructive than its transitional benefits.
Civilization does not deliver man from evil.  It merely makes evil tolerable through the development of fine style and
high purpose.
Socialism cannot be achieved by merely assuming the trappings of capitalism.
There is a fundamental distinction between a revolution and a coup.
Capitalism seeks to privatize all, even government, through the corporate structure.  Socialism must counteract this
devious strategy by seeking to socialize business through co-operatives.

Henry C.K. Liu

Tom Condit wrote:


> Louis Proyect writes:
>
> "Doug, the important thing to understand is that the only thing that
> socialists can demand is public ownership of corporations. ..."
>
> I think not. The question is not the ownership of corporations, which are
> legal figments, but of the real productive assets of society. We need not
> assume that the existing modes of management of those assets will be of any
> use at all to us in the future.
>
> Tom Condit