[lbo-talk] Challenge for leftists of all stripes

Eubulides paraconsistent at comcast.net
Mon Nov 29 20:52:39 PST 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Jackson" <cqmv at pdx.edu>

Nice idea, but this requires a shift away from the corporation as an independent entity, distinct from any of the individuals who participate in it. If we hold the people in positions of power in the corporation responsible, then the corporation isn't a legal "person" with rights distinct from those of the people who are employed by the corporation. The cat's already out of the bag on this one, isn't it? (If you slander a corporation, you're not slandering an individual, even the CEO; if the corporation is fined for pollution, you're not directly fining any of the specific employees of the corporation.)

Miles

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Yet surely, absent a gift from [a] wealthy individual[s], it's the unpaid labor of the employees that pays the fine?

Seems to me the question is just what right/duties etc.firms should have complementing the right/duties of their workers who create the wealth/externalities as against the unintended consequences of their actions vis a vis the wider community that is at issue. The problem of 'internal' institutional roles and accountability vis a vis democratic norms is at issue for a lot of the corporate personhood activists I've talked to. Surely there could be a Hohfeldian/Cohenesque rebundling of rights/duties/privileges/immunities that would achieve greater accordance with democratic norms than we currently have a la Robert Dahl, David Ellerman, David Schweickart, Gregory Dow, Mondragon, firms in the former Yugoslavia yada yada while giving greater scope to the wider public for technological choice, mediating ecological relationships etc.? This isn't rocket science.



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