----- Original Message -----
From: <topp8564 at mail.usyd.edu.au>
>
> My understanding was that Chomsky thought that both totalitarian regimes and
> corporations had their intellectual roots in what he calls "neo-Hegelianism".
> Briefly, this is supposed to be the idea that organic groups have rights over
> and beyond individuals. According to N.C. such ideas informed the framing of
> limited liability and other corporate rights laws during the 19th century, and
> also, less controversially, the ideas of Marx and the fascists.
>
> I would have thought that if corporations are creatures of the law, so is
> Fascism. The question should always be who makes the laws.
>
> T.O.
>
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Corporations are a couple of hundred years older than Hegel. Their rise to prominence is intimately linked with the Protestant reformation and the revolution in military organization that made the 30 years war such a nightmare for Europe.
Ian