Forum Post: Create the world we want. It is time to end corporations.

It is time to end corporations.

Imagine a person who had one singular interest in life. This interest could be sex, money, power, ice cream, green peppers, World of Warcraft levels, whatever. Let’s say it is ice cream. I care only about ice cream. Everything I do, I do only in relation to how well it maximizes my ability to acquire and hold onto ice cream. My home is built to store ice cream. I buy and build freezer buildings to store more ice cream. I live as close as I can to ice cream suppliers. I may build my own Ice cream factory. I don’t care how my actions effect anyone or anything else in the world- unless my effect on others causes a blip in my ability to get more ice cream. I don’t care if I kill people to get ice cream- unless I am going to get caught and go to jail for it – and only then because I probably won’t get enough ice cream in jail.

Now imagine Mr. Ice Cream is your next door neighbor. He would be one wierd flipping neighbor. You know this neighbor is a totally obsessed psychopath with a neurotic and dangerous fixation on the acquisition of ice cream. You a little worried he might do something horrible to you or your family in order to feed his ice cream habit, but you figure the laws protect you. Until one day, the laws change and you realize, if Mr. Ice Cream does something horrible, like kills you or your family in order to take all your ice cream…the only thing the law will do is take a little of Mr. Ice Cream’s Ice Cream away from him. Mr. Ice Cream will never go to jail. He will never be stopped from his ravenous Ice Cream acquisition habits. Taking risking highly damaging action to get more ice cream is now simply a small calculated risk for Mr. Ice Cream. And since Mr. Ice Cream has a ridiculous amount of ice cream in 5 huge barns, there is no real deterrent because the maximum ice cream penalty is only a few pints. So Mr. Ice Cream plays it fast and loose, aggressive and furious, screwing and killing left and right in order to get more Ice Cream.

Maybe you start thinking that Mr. Ice Cream needs to be reigned in. So you might try to ask your law makers to try and control Mr. Ice Cream. Then you discover your law makers are all ice cream addicts getting fed regularly by Mr. Ice Cream. Now your world is a nightmare. Welcome to the USA in 2012. Welcome to modern capitalist democracy.

Mr. Ice Cream, and any person who has one singular object of insaitiable desire, is a fucking lunatic. They are an obsessed, scary, crazy individual. A healthy human being has a diverse needs and desires. A healthy human being has compassion and feelings for the people and world around them. A healthy human being is capable of emotion. Only a really fucked up human being seeks one thing and one thing only in life – without a single ounce of care about anything else. And yet, our world today is controlled by really fucked up demented crazy entities exactly like Mr. Ice Cream, corporations.

We are talking about “for profit” corporations. A “for profit” corporation exists for one thing and one thing only, for profit. That is it’s definition, that is its purpose. Someone might start a corporation and maybe write in its founding by laws something really nice like “Don’t be evil,” but it is too late. Once you are a corporation, you have created an evil monster. This monster may be under your control and you may be a wonderful saintly person, full of feelings, compassion, and love, but you are still merely riding on the back of an evil beast. The moment you lose control of this dragon, either by adding shareholders or dying, this beast will start to show its true colors. The corporate beast is immortal, blood thirsty, insatiable, and will outlive and outlast any human intention.

It is time for us to just face this fact: Corporations are evil monsters. They are monsters. Corporations are monsters. They are evil fucking monsters and we will be better off without them. Yes, I am serious, let’s end for profit corporations forever. Ok begin your list of reasons why this is a bad idea now.

“But we need corporations.”

Why?

“We need corporations because they are good for the economy. If we didn’t have them, no one would try to be an entrepreneur.”

Why do you need corporations to be an entrepreneur?

“We need corporations because they give people the corporate shield, protection from lawsuits.”

Why do people starting businesses need protection from lawsuits?

“People starting businesses need protection from lawsuits because the business might get sued for doing something wrong. If there was no protection then business owners might lose all their stuff if their business gets sued for doing something wrong.”

So if there was no corporate shield, business owners might be terrified of doing things that hurt people?

“Yes!”

Good. Businesses and people should always feel terrefied of doing things that hurt people. This helps you think before you do things that may hurt people.

“No No No. We live in a litigious society. What if you have a successful business that does lots of good things, but evil stupid people just keep suing you to try and get your stuff. They are just using it to make your life miserable.”

If someone sues you, and you did nothing wrong, then you defend yourself.

“But no one can afford to defend themselves that much.”

How do corporations find the money to defend themselves in court?

“Well, I suppose they either have the money or they have some sort of law suit insurance to help deal with it.”

Ok. So businesses will either have the money to defend themselves or they get litigation insurance. Everyone will be like doctors and may want to buy malpractice insurance.

“Replace the corporate veil with insurance?”

Sure. If you are a business that is found guilty of doing wrong a lot, then your insurance will go up. If you are always found not guilty, then it will stay low. This will make the replacement “corporate veil” actually cost more for evil doers than for good businesses. Monsters will pay a lot more than good businesses.

“This is crazy. Corporations serve an important purpose.”

What purpose?

“They give you a framework for groups of people to be in business together.”

Corporations can still exist, there just will be no shield.

“But this means share holders of a business are actually liable for the businesses wrong doing? If I own shares in a local restaurant and it gets sued for hot coffee spills, I could lose my house!”

Yes. Unless that restaurant has litigation insurance, so you probably want to make sure it does. If you own a part of a business that doesn’t then you better be damn sure it practices its business in a very good healthy fair way.

“This is crazy! Corporations are socially acceptable parts of our capitalist economy. You can’t just eliminate them.”

So we keep around things because they are socially acceptable? Prejudice? Racism? Belief in anything – regardless of its truth? Social acceptablity or popular opinion is not a way to gauge something’s value. We must use our minds and hearts. Take a breath and take some time to look at corporations. Why do we have them? What is their purpose? What is their value? If you look honestly at them, you will begin to see they are evil monsters. Any value they have, we can replace with simple alternative mechanisms that don’t come with the monstrous heart.