Hello from a discontented American

[Bfgrn]

Read your own source:
It was the ideals of the English Whigs that inspired what later came to be known as the liberal movement in the whole of Europe[15] and that provided the conceptions that the American colonists carried with them and which guided them in their struggle for independence and in the establishment of their constitution.

The founders were influenced by the English Whigs, as was Hayek.


Refer to your own JFK quote for that answer. Are you saying we should only follow 18th century Anglo-American ideologies? Why does that even matter? Also, your statement contains incorrect assumptions.
1. It is not a purely German/Austro-Hungarian ideology. Many (most?) of the modern Austrians are Americans. The Mises Institute is located in Alabama, not Austria or Germany, and is considered the current leader in Austrian economics.
2. It is not a 19th century ideology. The ideology has been expanded on by many scholars, and many of the most famous did their writings in the 20th century. People like Thomas E. Woods, Ron Paul, and others are not only American citizens, but 21st century writers.
3. Hayek said his ideology most closely resembled the Whig party of Britain. The whig pary was a 18th century Anglo party whose ideals were carried over to America and heavily influenced the founding fathers. Hayek therefore believes in an Anglo-American ideology.


No, they would not. Look up the definition of statism.
statist - definition of statist by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
"The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy."
The founders believed in a laissez-faire hands off economic approach and a decentralized government, not statism. Statism does not mean having a government.


Considered they believed in economic liberalism (classical liberalism, not modern american) and laissez-faire capitalism, it would be logical to assume they would not want strict control of corporations, which runs contrary to those ideals. They also would not want the subsidization of corporations by government like we have today.


How did I hijack Jefferson by pointing out he was against central banking like Austrian economists? That isn't hijacking, that is called evidence. Evidence which you can't refute, so you resort to the above demagoguery instead.


Is that what you are doing? I am simply pointing to what the founders actually said and believed, and comparing it to modern American political ideologies. The ideology I have found to be most similar to the founders is libertarianism. You say liberalism, but libertarianism is the modern successor of liberalism (in the classic sense). American liberals are not classical liberals, neither are conservatives. You do realize how we in America confuse the term liberal, do you not? Liberal used to mean limited government (economic and social liberalism). Libertarians believe in limited government.

You have provided nothing to prove the contrary.

My God man...Alabama, the epicenter of Austrian ideology...LOL

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fɔn ˈmiːzəs]; September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian-American economist, historian, philosopher, author, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern free-market libertarian movement and the Austrian School.

Early life

Ludwig von Mises was born to wealthy, Jewish parents, in the city of Lwów, in Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv in Ukraine). The family of his father Arthur Edler von Mises, had been elevated to the Austrian nobility in the 19th century, and was involved in building and financing railroads. Ludwig's mother, Adele (née Landau), was a niece of Dr. Joachim Landau, a Liberal Party deputy to the Austrian Parliament.[1] Arthur was stationed there as a construction engineer with Czernowitz railway company. At the age of twelve Ludwig spoke fluent Yiddish, German, Polish, and French, read Latin, and could understand Ukrainian.[2] Mises was the older brother of the famous applied physicist Richard von Mises, a member of the Vienna Circle. Another brother, Karl von Mises, had died in infancy from scarlet fever. When Ludwig and Richard were children, his family moved back to their ancestral home of Vienna.

In 1900, he attended the University of Vienna,[3] becoming influenced by the works of Carl Menger. Mises' father died in 1903, and in 1906 Mises was awarded his doctorate from the school of law.

Professional life

In the years from 1904 to 1914, Mises attended lectures given by the prominent Austrian economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. There, he developed friendships not only with Menger and Böhm-Bawerk, but also prominent sociologist Max Weber.[4] Mises taught as a Privatdozent at the Vienna University in the years from 1913 to 1934 while formally serving as secretary at the Vienna Chamber of Commerce from 1909 to 1934. In these roles, he became one of the closest economic advisers of Engelbert Dollfuss, the "austrofascist" but strongly anti-Nazi Austrian Chancellor,[5] and later to Otto von Habsburg, the Christian democratic politician and claimant to the throne of Austria (which had been legally abolished in 1918).[6] Friends and students of Mises in Europe included Wilhelm Röpke and Alfred Müller-Armack (influential advisors to German chancellor Ludwig Erhard), Jacques Rueff (monetary advisor to Charles de Gaulle), Lord Lionel Robbins (of the London School of Economics), and President of Italy, Luigi Einaudi.[7]

Economist and political theorist F. A. Hayek first came to know Mises while working as Mises' subordinate at a government office dealing with Austria's post-World War I debt.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I gave you an opportunity to research how our founding fathers treated corporations. You chose to assume they would agree with Austrian and German ideologues...WRONG

Ever hear of the saying, actions speak louder than words? So HOW they actually governed is how THEY actually interpreted the documents they authored.

Our founding fathers believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.

Nineteenth-century laws regulating corporations in America

*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.

*Corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).

*The state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter if it misbehaved.

*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn’t break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were “just doing their job” when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.

*State (not federal) courts heard cases where corporations or their agents were accused of breaking the law or harming the public.

*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.

*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice).

*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.

*Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).

*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.

*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.

*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

The Early Role of Corporations in America

The Legacy of the Founding Parents

BTW, JFK's quote is about non intervention.


Education is the cheap defense of nations.
Edmund Burke

Thanks for the irrelevant history lesson on Ludwig von Mises. What the hell are you talking about "German Ideologies"? I am talking about Hayek, a prominent Austrian economist (as opposed to Keynesian or supply-side). He said he would consider himself a whig. The Whig party was a British political party that heavily influenced the founders. So yes, Hayek does have a similar ideology to the founders.

Also, I highly reccomend reading your own sources. Marshall was considered the nemesis of Jefferson. Here is Jefferson's comments on Marshall's judicial activism (from your own source) which he highly condemned.

"Jefferson continued in full fury,
The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law. My construction of the Constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal...."

James Madison on business regulations:
"I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic—it is also a truth, that if industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out."

Madison then continued to say he would regulate monopolies, not corporations. So you are incorrect in your assumptions.

As for your laws regulating corporations...WRONG. FAIL. You are either lying or too lazy to read your own sources, mean you skimmed over google results hoping to find something to counter me with. Time to read your own source in context.

Far from being "radical," harsh criticism of corporations has a long, respectable, and mainstream political lineage. Now that you know you're in good company, let's dream a little. Imagine what grassroots environmental activism would be like if corporations were restructured to be responsive to the people and to serve the public interest.

What if...

* corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
* corporations' licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
* the state legislature could revoke a corporation's charter for a particular reason, or for no reason at all.
* the act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
* as a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
* state (not federal) courts heard cases where corporations or their agents were accused of breaking the law or harming the public.
* directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.
* corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
* corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, like 20 or 30 years (instead of being granted "in perpetuity," as is now the practice.)
* corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations in order to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
* corporations' real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).
* corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
* corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
* state legislatures set the rates that corporations could charge for their products or services.
* all corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

WHAT IF. Those are not 19th century regulations. The author has no evidence of 19th century regulations nor what the founding fathers believed about corporations. Those are regulations the author is dreaming about. You really are something else...misquoting articles out of context and making stuff up. Libertarianism is modern day classical liberalism, which is the ideology the founders generally held. I am not sure what all your confusion is about.

You are in COLLEGE? Un-fucking real!

First of all, I will say this again...if you are going to quote people, like our founding fathers, you need to provide a source or a link. Those are the rules of the board.

NOW, let's get into your 'What if...'

Did you read the VERY next line???

All of these provisions were once law in the state of Wisconsin. And similar ones were on the books in most other states.

Need other sources?

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States

When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.

The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:

* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.

* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.

* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.

* Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.

* Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.

* Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company's accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.



Abolish Corporate Personhood

Another word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when. Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process. Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years. But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge. And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.

That sounds nothing like the corporations of today, so what happened in the last two centuries?

The History of Corporations in the United States

The History of the Corporation

 

[ShackledNation]

You are in COLLEGE? Un-fucking real!

Ir-fucking-relevant. Did it take you that long to read my original post which stated I was in college?

First of all, I will say this again...if you are going to quote people, like our founding fathers, you need to provide a source or a link. Those are the rules of the board.

The source I used is your source. There is no reason to repost the link when I am responding to your provided link.

NOW, let's get into your 'What if...'

Did you read the VERY next line???

All of these provisions were once law in the state of Wisconsin. And similar ones were on the books in most other states.

Provisions once in Wisconism is not "Nineteenth-century laws regulating corporations in America."

1. Wisconsin does not represent all of America, and state law is not restricted in the same way as federal law.
2. At one point in time does not mean they were supported by the founders or even existent in the 19th century.

So yes, your statement was misleading and incorrect.

Need other sources?

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States

When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.

The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:

* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.

* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.

* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.

* Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.

* Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.

* Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company's accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

Why did you quote an entire article and say nothing about it yourself? You didn't even bother to put it in quotes as if to give the appearance you wrote all of that response. The fact that your responose is another article completely ignores my points, which is why rather than refute each one individually you reply to the whole post in the way you do.

Abolish Corporate Personhood

Another word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when. Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process. Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years. But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge. And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.

That sounds nothing like the corporations of today, so what happened in the last two centuries?

Another block quote from an article. Really? The Constitution also limits government, not corporations. Corporate personhood came about because of government. Libertarians are generally against corporate personhood (although since they argue for lower taxes the benefits of corporate personhood become moot). So thank you for providing evidence that the founders ideology about corporations is similar to that of modern libertarians.

I am not saying the founders views are completely in line with libertarians. But looking at all current ideologies still around today, libertarianism seems most like the classical liberalism of the founders. You are looking at one issue of corporations, which you claim founders and libertarians differ one. One, your evidence does not prove the founders believed anything you are saying because they are not specifically referenced much. Two, you never referenced libertarian thoughts on corporations and contrasted them. Spewing thoughts of modern writers on past views of corporations does absolutely nothing to prove whether or not libertarians hold similar positions. Finally, that is one small issue. Even if the founders and libertarians have opposite views on corporations, I would still consider the founders views to be most closely related to modern libertarianism.

 

[Bfgrn]

You are in COLLEGE? Un-fucking real!

Ir-fucking-relevant. Did it take you that long to read my original post which stated I was in college?

First of all, I will say this again...if you are going to quote people, like our founding fathers, you need to provide a source or a link. Those are the rules of the board.

The source I used is your source. There is no reason to repost the link when I am responding to your provided link.


Provisions once in Wisconism is not "Nineteenth-century laws regulating corporations in America."

1. Wisconsin does not represent all of America, and state law is not restricted in the same way as federal law.
2. At one point in time does not mean they were supported by the founders or even existent in the 19th century.

So yes, your statement was misleading and incorrect.

Need other sources?

Our Hidden History of Corporations in the United States

When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.




For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company's accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

Why did you quote an entire article and say nothing about it yourself? You didn't even bother to put it in quotes as if to give the appearance you wrote all of that response. The fact that your responose is another article completely ignores my points, which is why rather than refute each one individually you reply to the whole post in the way you do.

Abolish Corporate Personhood

Another word that appears nowhere in the Constitution is "corporation," for the writers had no interest in using for-profit corporations to run their new government. In colonial times, corporations were tools of the king's oppression, chartered for the purpose of exploiting the so-called "New World" and shoveling wealth back into Europe. The rich formed joint-stock corporations to distribute the enormous risk of colonizing the Americas and gave them names like the Hudson Bay Company, the British East India Company, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Because they were so far from their sovereign - the king - the agents for these corporations had a lot of autonomy to do their work; they could pass laws, levy taxes, and even raise armies to manage and control property and commerce. They were not popular with the colonists.

So the Constitution's authors left control of corporations to state legislatures (10th Amendment), where they would get the closest supervision by the people. Early corporate charters were explicit about what a corporation could do, how, for how long, with whom, where, and when. Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and they were prohibited from any part of the political process. Individual stockholders were held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, and most charters only lasted for 10 or 15 years. But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges the shareholders sought, their corporations had to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such a building a road, canal, or bridge. And when corporations violated any of these terms, their charters were frequently revoked by the state legislatures.

That sounds nothing like the corporations of today, so what happened in the last two centuries?

Another block quote from an article. Really? The Constitution also limits government, not corporations. Corporate personhood came about because of government. Libertarians are generally against corporate personhood (although since they argue for lower taxes the benefits of corporate personhood become moot). So thank you for providing evidence that the founders ideology about corporations is similar to that of modern libertarians.

I am not saying the founders views are completely in line with libertarians. But looking at all current ideologies still around today, libertarianism seems most like the classical liberalism of the founders. You are looking at one issue of corporations, which you claim founders and libertarians differ one. One, your evidence does not prove the founders believed anything you are saying because they are not specifically referenced much. Two, you never referenced libertarian thoughts on corporations and contrasted them. Spewing thoughts of modern writers on past views of corporations does absolutely nothing to prove whether or not libertarians hold similar positions. Finally, that is one small issue. Even if the founders and libertarians have opposite views on corporations, I would still consider the founders views to be most closely related to modern libertarianism.

You are now either in denial or employing deceit. HOW could you read that article and only glean what YOU want to hear, and ignore the whole gist of the piece? You cherry pick a Madison quote and ignore what precedes it:

In a letter to Edmund Randolph on September 30, 1783, Madison wrote, “Wherever Commerce prevails there will be an inequality of wealth, and wherever [an inequality of wealth prevails] a simplicity of manners must decline.”27

AND, you also ignore what immediately followed:

When commerce was taken over by large corporate or religious enterprises, however, Madison knew exactly where he stood. In 1817 he wrote, “There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”29

Can Madison be any more CLEAR???

The proof is actions. Our founding fathers were intimately involved in state governments, like Jefferson in Virginia. As I said in an earlier post, the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against corporate tax cuts and corporate subsidy. Our founders would never, ever agree with a hands off, no regulation approach to corporations the Austrian School espouses.

And you provide NOTHING to refute my claims...except your obfuscation and emote. If our founding fathers were huge laissez faire Austrian schoolers, there should be mountains of evidence of that philosophy and actions to back that claim.

There is none for very good reason...they WEREN'T.

There is further proof in the article you cherry picked from that this claim you made is baseless and false:
"Provisions once in Wisconism is not "Nineteenth-century laws regulating corporations in America."

1. Wisconsin does not represent all of America..."

AND, you earlier provided an un-sourced Jefferson quote on public education that portrays the opposite of his beliefs...

From my linked article:

Rulings and Laws on Revoking Corporate Charters

In a sense, a corporate charter is like a driver’s license: It is permission to operate in a particular way, granted by the government. (The comparison is imperfect in technical details, but this point doesn’t depend on those details.) Like a driver’s license, a charter can be revoked if the privilege is abused.

In 1819 Chief Justice John Marshall used the power he had given himself and the Supreme Court to alter the states’ power to regulate or dissolve corporations.

King George III had chartered Dartmouth College in 1769 as a private college, but one part of Jefferson’s agenda was to make a college education available to any citizen regardless of the ability to pay. In keeping with Jefferson’s Democratic Republican philosophy of free public education, the state of New Hampshire dissolved Dartmouth’s corporate charter and rechartered it as a public state school. Dartmouth sued to retain its private corporate charter status, claiming that the corporate charter granted by King George before the Revolution was still valid, and the case went to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Marshall, in an opinion clearly reflective of Federalist thought and opposed to Jefferson’s plans, ruled that because the original corporate charter of Dartmouth College didn’t contain a clause that would allow for its own revocation, and the charter “was a contract between the state and the College, which under the federal Constitution no legislature could impair,” the state of New Hampshire had no authority to revoke the college’s charter.24

Even at this, Marshall was explicit about the need for restrictions on corporations, including that they are not citizens.

As corporate historian and law professor James Willard Hurst notes, “The Dartmouth College case put states on warning that regulation of their corporate creatures must be compatible with the contract clause of the federal Constitution. Concerned to respect state control of corporate activity, the Court took pains to deny that a corporation was a ‘citizen’ of the chartering state so that it might claim in other states the benefits of the Constitution’s privileges and immunities clause.”25

Even with this qualification, the response from the states—feeling that the Marshall Court had usurped their power to control or dissolve corporations—was furious. Newspapers wrote scathing editorials about the decision, citizens were outraged, and over the following years numerous state legislators took action.

In response to the Dartmouth decision, Pennsylvania’s legislature passed a law in 1825 that declared the legislature had the power to “revoke, alter or annul the charter” of corporations. New York State passed a similar law in 1828, including “Section 320,” which said that any acts by a corporation not specifically authorized in their charter were ultra vires (Latin for “beyond the power”; it basically means “you can’t do that because you lack the legal authority&#8221 and grounds for revocation of the corporation’s charter. Michigan, Louisiana, and Delaware all passed laws in 1831 limiting the time of corporate charters.26

In the following decade, Michigan, Delaware, Florida, and New York all passed laws that corporate charters could be created or renewed only by a two-thirds vote of the legislature. Altogether during the nineteenth century, nineteen states passed laws in response to Marshall’s ruling in the Dartmouth case, each specifying they had the authority to control corporations. Rhode Island’s 1857 law is characteristic: “The charter or acts of association of every corporation hereafter created may be amendable or repealed at the will of the general assembly.”

In 1855 the U.S. Supreme Court went along with the trend, ruling in Dodge v. Woolsey that the states have not “released their powers over the artificial bodies which originate under the legislation of their representatives.” The Court added, “combinations of classes in society...united by the bond of a corporate spirit...unquestionably desire limitations upon the sovereignty of the people....But the framers of the Constitution were imbued with no desire to call into existence such combinations.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I said before, you have every right to your beliefs. But don't try to hijack people like Thomas Jefferson who was not a libertarian. And I also said your economic beliefs are naive at best and radical at worst. They open the door to fascism in the form of corporatism.

"I willingly acquiesce in the institutions of my country, perfect or imperfect, and think it a duty to leave their modifications to those who are to live under them and are to participate of the good or evil they may produce. The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself." --Thomas Jefferson to John Hampden Pleasants, 1824. ME 16:29

 

[editec]

There's one thing I agree with my chums in the Austrian school of econ.

Mises and others argued that numerically accurate "probabilities" could never be assigned to "singular" cases.

source

Risk accessment is based on the premise that THE HERD WILL NEVER STAMPEDE.

Clearly, if one looks at the history of the markets, one can see that is obviously NOT the case.

 

[midcan5]

Welcome. I have to say that I can't for the life of me figure out why so many of our youth are unhappy with America. You should have lived in slavery, or slave labor, or depressions, or war, or poverty, and then at least there'd be something to talk about. America the land of the whiner, should be our new slogan.

 

[dblack]

Welcome. I have to say that I can't for the life of me figure out why so many of our youth are unhappy with America. You should have lived in slavery, or slave labor, or depressions, or war, or poverty....

Perhaps they're seeing a trend.

 

[Bfgrn]

Welcome. I have to say that I can't for the life of me figure out why so many of our youth are unhappy with America. You should have lived in slavery, or slave labor, or depressions, or war, or poverty....

Perhaps they're seeing a trend.

The trend is: 'it's the end of __________, a Democrat is in the White House.

Insert word(s) of choice...examples: capitalism, America, the world...

 

[dblack]

The trend is: 'it's the end of __________, a Democrat is in the White House.

Insert word(s) of choice...examples: capitalism, America, the world...

Are you trying to make a coherent point? I don't see young people lined up against Democrats in particular. I think they're worried about where things seem to be going. You can mock that, I suppose, but it doesn't really change the nature of their concerns.

 

[Bfgrn]

The trend is: 'it's the end of __________, a Democrat is in the White House.

Insert word(s) of choice...examples: capitalism, America, the world...

Are you trying to make a coherent point? I don't see young people lined up against Democrats in particular. I think they're worried about where things seem to be going. You can mock that, I suppose, but it doesn't really change the nature of their concerns.

It is a very coherent point. There is a growing segment of the population who are totally brainwashed. There has always been that element, even before 24/7 propaganda by Faux news, Limbaugh etc. But now it is metastasizing. I am concerned about what will happen to the American people if Republicans are able to get their draconian cuts to social programs or privatize those programs for the benefit of corporations. not We, the People.

The health of a nation or an economy is measured in human capital. Republicans have been able to define issues, control debate and create a crisis that does not exist. In relation to GDP, our public held debt is a bit over half of what it was in 1946. Will Republicans tell you that? Health care costs had become the single most likely culprit to send a middle class family into bankruptcy...Will Republicans tell you that? Will Republicans tell you that they made a collective decision to undermine the health care debate to try to hand Obama is 'Waterloo'?

Young people need to be concerned about someone other than themselves.

 

[dblack]

Young people need to be concerned about someone other than themselves.

And that's exactly what I see happening, more and more. That's why it's so disheartening to see them mocked and belittled for their concerns. Especially in a crass attempt to score partisan points.

 

[Bfgrn]

Young people need to be concerned about someone other than themselves.

And that's exactly what I see happening, more and more. That's why it's so disheartening to see them mocked and belittled for their concerns. Especially in a crass attempt to score partisan points.

Fuck you...I am not mocking people who care about others, I am mocking the Faux news parrots. I hear a bunch of young people squawk that language.

There are many libertarians I admire and agree with like Barry Goldwater and Harry Browne. But I never hear these libertarians speak that language.

 

[ShackledNation]

Can Madison be any more CLEAR???

He was referring to monopolies, not corporations. And as I said before, libertarians do not hold the views of corporations you espouse. The talk constantly about preventing corporatism and stopping government from granting monopolies, which is what Madison was fearful of.

There is none for very good reason...they WEREN'T.

I am not saying the founders were Austrians. I am saying Austrians expanded upon the ideas of the founders. Many of the views are very similar, like central banking, whether you like it or not. Again, all of this talk about corporations is irrelevent because it is only 1 issue. As I said before, even if the founders and libertarians had completely opposite views of corporations, the founders classical liberalism would still resemble most closely modern day libertarianism, which holds its roots in classical liberalism.

There is further proof in the article you cherry picked from that this claim you made is baseless and false:

Stop trying to get around your mistake. You quoted the article saying the points you listed were 19th century American regulations. They were not. Period. There is no need to discuss that point.

Even at this, Marshall was explicit about the need for restrictions on corporations, including that they are not citizens.

Libertarians also do not believe in corporate person-hood. Another similarity you keep bringing to light as a difference.

As I said before, you have every right to your beliefs. But don't try to hijack people like Thomas Jefferson who was not a libertarian.

Again I ask you: What modern philosophy today most closely represents Jefferson? It is clearly libertarianism. Jefferson was against central banking, he was a noninterventionist, pro states rights, pro free market, and advocated high personal and economic freedoms with a limited government. That is the libertarian position as well.

And I also said your economic beliefs are naive at best and radical at worst. They open the door to fascism in the form of corporatism.

No they don't. Libertarianism is inherently anti-corporatist. You obviously don't really know what libertarianism is, and just assume it means "far right."

You said yourself that the founders would be considered "liberal." Libertarians are descendants of that same tradition. You are simply incorrect. Your only argument is the corporation argument, but libertarians don't even belief in corporate personhood as you seem to think. As I have had to repeat ad nauseum, libertarianism is the modern form of classical liberalism practiced by the founders. Hayek was even influenced by the same British political party the founders were influenced by, so much so that he preferred to call himself a whig. Hayek insinuated in your own article that he would call himself a liberal if the term had not been so convoluted by American politics.

You say the founders were liberals. Guess what: libertarians are liberals. Modern "liberalism" is totally different than the liberalism the founders espoused.

 

[Bfgrn]

Can Madison be any more CLEAR???

He was referring to monopolies, not corporations. And as I said before, libertarians do not hold the views of corporations you espouse. The talk constantly about preventing corporatism and stopping government from granting monopolies, which is what Madison was fearful of.

There is none for very good reason...they WEREN'T.

I am not saying the founders were Austrians. I am saying Austrians expanded upon the ideas of the founders. Many of the views are very similar, like central banking, whether you like it or not. Again, all of this talk about corporations is irrelevent because it is only 1 issue. As I said before, even if the founders and libertarians had completely opposite views of corporations, the founders classical liberalism would still resemble most closely modern day libertarianism, which holds its roots in classical liberalism.


Stop trying to get around your mistake. You quoted the article saying the points you listed were 19th century American regulations. They were not. Period. There is no need to discuss that point.


Libertarians also do not believe in corporate person-hood. Another similarity you keep bringing to light as a difference.

As I said before, you have every right to your beliefs. But don't try to hijack people like Thomas Jefferson who was not a libertarian.

Again I ask you: What modern philosophy today most closely represents Jefferson? It is clearly libertarianism. Jefferson was against central banking, he was a noninterventionist, pro states rights, pro free market, and advocated high personal and economic freedoms with a limited government. That is the libertarian position as well.

And I also said your economic beliefs are naive at best and radical at worst. They open the door to fascism in the form of corporatism.

No they don't. Libertarianism is inherently anti-corporatist. You obviously don't really know what libertarianism is, and just assume it means "far right."

You said yourself that the founders would be considered "liberal." Libertarians are descendants of that same tradition. You are simply incorrect. Your only argument is the corporation argument, but libertarians don't even belief in corporate personhood as you seem to think. As I have had to repeat ad nauseum, libertarianism is the modern form of classical liberalism practiced by the founders. Hayek was even influenced by the same British political party the founders were influenced by, so much so that he preferred to call himself a whig. Hayek insinuated in your own article that he would call himself a liberal if the term had not been so convoluted by American politics.

You say the founders were liberals. Guess what: libertarians are liberals. Modern "liberalism" is totally different than the liberalism the founders espoused.

WOW, you really are a piece of work. You hack up my posts, delete what you don't want to hear and claim falsities as truth. It is clear you are nothing like our founders who held ethics and honesty high.

When commerce was taken over by large corporate or religious enterprises, however, Madison knew exactly where he stood. In 1817 he wrote, “There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”29

Can Madison be any more CLEAR???

And you falsely claim he was only talking about monopolies??? WHY, because you can't admit you were wrong?

ShackledNation: Stop trying to get around your mistake. You quoted the article saying the points you listed were 19th century American regulations. They were not. Period. There is no need to discuss that point.

Yes there is reason to discuss this point. You are wrong. WHAT ABOUT ALL THESES States?

In response to the Dartmouth decision, Pennsylvania’s legislature passed a law in 1825 that declared the legislature had the power to “revoke, alter or annul the charter” of corporations. New York State passed a similar law in 1828, including “Section 320,” which said that any acts by a corporation not specifically authorized in their charter were ultra vires (Latin for “beyond the power”; it basically means “you can’t do that because you lack the legal authority”) and grounds for revocation of the corporation’s charter. Michigan, Louisiana, and Delaware all passed laws in 1831 limiting the time of corporate charters.26

In the following decade, Michigan, Delaware, Florida, and New York all passed laws that corporate charters could be created or renewed only by a two-thirds vote of the legislature. Altogether during the nineteenth century, nineteen states passed laws in response to Marshall’s ruling in the Dartmouth case, each specifying they had the authority to control corporations. Rhode Island’s 1857 law is characteristic: “The charter or acts of association of every corporation hereafter created may be amendable or repealed at the will of the general assembly.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a HUGE difference between the Austrian hands off, no regulations on corporations, vs our founding fathers who believed in very tight controls over corporations and heavy regulations.

It is the difference between a free and open society where We, the People control government, vs a corporatocracy where a plutocracy rules. We tried that in America after the Civil War...it was called the Gilded Age where the robber barons ruled America.

Here is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy...Words of wisdom from a liberal.

RFK Jr. - 2005

"There is nothing wrong with corporations. Corporations are a good thing. They encourage us to take risks. They maximize wealth. They create jobs. I own a corporation. They're a great thing, but they should not be running our government. The reason for that is they don't have the same aspirations for America that you and I do. A corporation does not want democracy. It does not want free markets, it wants profits, and the best way for it to get profits is to use our campaign-finance system -- which is just a system of legalized bribery -- to get their stakes, their hooks into a public official and then use that public official to dismantle the marketplace to give them a competitive advantage and then to privatize the commons, to steal the commonwealth, to liquidate public assets for cash, to plunder, to steal from the rest of us.

And that doesn't mean corporations are a bad thing. It just means they're amoral, and we have to recognize that and not let them into the political process. Let them do their thing, but they should not be participating in our political process, because a corporation cannot do something genuinely philanthropic. It's against the law in this country, because their shareholders can sue them for wasting corporate resources. They cannot legally do anything that will not increase their profit margins. That's the way the law works, and we have to recognize that and understand that they are toxic for the political process, and they have to be fenced off and kept out of the political process. This is why throughout our history our most visionary political leaders -- Republican and Democrat -- have been warning the American public against domination by corporate power.

This (Bush) White House has done a great job of persuading a gullible press and the American public that the big threat to American democracy is big government. Well, yeah, big government is a threat ultimately, but it is dwarfed by the threat of excessive corporate power and the corrosive impact that has on our democracy. And you know, as I said, you look at all the great political leaders in this country and the central theme is that we have to be cautious about, we have to avoid, the domination of our government by corporate power.

Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, said that America would never be destroyed by a foreign power but he warned that our political institutions, our democratic institutions, would be subverted by malefactors of great wealth, who would erode them from within. Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more." Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing. Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power. And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left.

In order to do that, we need an informed public and an activist public. And we need a vigorous and an independent press that is willing to speak truth to power. And we no longer have that in the United States of America. And that's something that puts all the values we care about in jeopardy, because you cannot have a clean environment if you do not have a functioning democracy. They are intertwined; they go together. There is a direct correlation around the planet between the level of tyranny and the level of environmental destruction.

The only way you can protect the environment is through a true, locally based democracy. You can protect it for a short term under a tyranny, where there is some kind of beneficent dictator but, over the long term, the only way we can protect the environment is by ensuring our democracy. That has got to be the number-one issue for all of us: to try to restore American democracy, because without that we lose all of the other things that we value.

 

[ShackledNation]

When commerce was taken over by large corporate or religious enterprises, however, Madison knew exactly where he stood. In 1817 he wrote, “There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”29

Can Madison be any more CLEAR???

Yes he can. You need to read the quote in full context.
"But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agaist in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The power of all corporations, ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. A warning on this subject is emphatically given in the example of the various Charitable establishments in G. B. the management of which has been lately scrutinized. The excessive wealth of ecclesiastical Corporations and the misuse of it in many Countries of Europe has long been a topic of complaint. In some of them the Church has amassed half perhaps the property of the nation. When the reformation took place, an event promoted if not caused, by that disordered state of things, how enormous were the treasures of religious societies, and how gross the corruptions engendered by them; so enormous & so gross as to produce in the Cabinets & Councils of the Protestant states a disregard, of all the pleas of the interested party drawn from the sanctions of the law, and the sacredness of property held in religious trust. The history of England during the period of the reformation offers a sufficient illustration for the present purpose.

Are the U. S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of Religious Congregations with the faculty of acquiring & holding property real as well as personal?"
He is talking about religious institutions becoming incorporated. The quote was first published as "Aspects of Monopoly One Hundred Years Ago" in 1914 by Harper's Magazine. When you take a quote out of context and replace part of it with "..." you are going to miss the point. That "..." was very significant. (Amendment I (Religion): James Madison, Detached Memoranda) Either way, even if I concede the founders did not like corporations, it would not prove your point. Not all libertarians are in agreement on corporations, and some hold the view they shouldn't even exist. Others say private contract should determine corporations, and that corporations now are government created creatures. There are varying positions. But even if they were opposite to the founders, that is one position. The founders would completely disagree with the current neoconservative views of regulating social behavior and engaging in aggressive wars. They would

And you falsely claim he was only talking about monopolies??? WHY, because you can't admit you were wrong?

In the quote I provided, he was. Now you are providing a different quote. And you misquoted that as well.

Yes there is reason to discuss this point. You are wrong. WHAT ABOUT ALL THESES States?

Irrelevant. The point you made was incorrect. You misquoted the article. The article clearly stated those were once laws in Wisconsin, not 19th century America. I cannot believe you are trying to spin it any other way.

This is a HUGE difference between the Austrian hands off, no regulations on corporations, vs our founding fathers who believed in very tight controls over corporations and heavy regulations.

The founders did not believe in heavy regulations of corporations. You are completely wrong. They did not speak much of corporations. What seems to be the case judging by views at the time is that they would not like the idea of corporate personhood. Neither do libertarians, so they are in agreement.

Here is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy...Words of wisdom from a liberal.

This (Bush) White House has done a great job of persuading a gullible press and the American public that the big threat to American democracy is big government.

Is this another quote? Because it makes no sense to say "this" when currently "this" is Obama. And Bush was a big government guy himself, btw.

Well, yeah, big government is a threat ultimately, but it is dwarfed by the threat of excessive corporate power and the corrosive impact that has on our democracy. And you know, as I said, you look at all the great political leaders in this country and the central theme is that we have to be cautious about, we have to avoid, the domination of our government by corporate power.

The founders were ultimately concerned about limiting government. All evidence points to that fact. Neither modern day liberals are conservatives truly advocate limited government as the founders did.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.
As do libertarians.

Abraham Lincoln, the greatest Republican in our history, said during the height of the Civil War "I have the South in front of me and I have the bankers behind me. And for my country, I fear the bankers more." Franklin Roosevelt said during World War II that the domination of government by corporate power is "the essence of fascism" and Benito Mussolini -- who had an insider's view of that process -- said the same thing. Essentially, he complained that fascism should not be called fascism. It should be called corporatism because it was the merger of state and corporate power. And what we have to understand as Americans is that the domination of business by government is called communism. The domination of government by business is called fascism. And our job is to walk that narrow trail in between, which is free-market capitalism and democracy. And keep big government at bay with our right hand and corporate power at bay with our left.

All these quotes are irrelevant because you are not quoting founders or libertarians whom we are comparing. Quoting FDR tells me nothing about the current debate about whether libertarians and the founders held similar ideologies.

In order to do that, we need an informed public and an activist public. And we need a vigorous and an independent press that is willing to speak truth to power. And we no longer have that in the United States of America. And that's something that puts all the values we care about in jeopardy, because you cannot have a clean environment if you do not have a functioning democracy. They are intertwined; they go together. There is a direct correlation around the planet between the level of tyranny and the level of environmental destruction.

The only way you can protect the environment is through a true, locally based democracy. You can protect it for a short term under a tyranny, where there is some kind of beneficent dictator but, over the long term, the only way we can protect the environment is by ensuring our democracy. That has got to be the number-one issue for all of us: to try to restore American democracy, because without that we lose all of the other things that we value.

Completely irrelevant to the current discussion.

Let me remind you what we are talking about here. I am saying that the views of the founding fathers are most closely represented by modern libertarianism. Libertarians believe in strict interpretation of the constitution, noninterventionist foreign policies, laissez faire economics, limited government, no central banks, and high civil liberties. The founders did as well. Both libertarians and the founders are not fond of the idea of corporate personhood.

You say the founders are like liberals. By liberals do you mean the American definition of liberal, or classical liberalism? Because I have a feeling you are conflating the two.

 

[Bfgrn]

When commerce was taken over by large corporate or religious enterprises, however, Madison knew exactly where he stood. In 1817 he wrote, “There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”29

Can Madison be any more CLEAR???

Yes he can. You need to read the quote in full context.
"But besides the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded agaist in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The power of all corporations, ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. A warning on this subject is emphatically given in the example of the various Charitable establishments in G. B. the management of which has been lately scrutinized. The excessive wealth of ecclesiastical Corporations and the misuse of it in many Countries of Europe has long been a topic of complaint. In some of them the Church has amassed half perhaps the property of the nation. When the reformation took place, an event promoted if not caused, by that disordered state of things, how enormous were the treasures of religious societies, and how gross the corruptions engendered by them; so enormous & so gross as to produce in the Cabinets & Councils of the Protestant states a disregard, of all the pleas of the interested party drawn from the sanctions of the law, and the sacredness of property held in religious trust. The history of England during the period of the reformation offers a sufficient illustration for the present purpose.

Are the U. S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of Religious Congregations with the faculty of acquiring & holding property real as well as personal?"
He is talking about religious institutions becoming incorporated. The quote was first published as "Aspects of Monopoly One Hundred Years Ago" in 1914 by Harper's Magazine. When you take a quote out of context and replace part of it with "..." you are going to miss the point. That "..." was very significant. (Amendment I (Religion): James Madison, Detached Memoranda) Either way, even if I concede the founders did not like corporations, it would not prove your point. Not all libertarians are in agreement on corporations, and some hold the view they shouldn't even exist. Others say private contract should determine corporations, and that corporations now are government created creatures. There are varying positions. But even if they were opposite to the founders, that is one position. The founders would completely disagree with the current neoconservative views of regulating social behavior and engaging in aggressive wars. They would

And you falsely claim he was only talking about monopolies??? WHY, because you can't admit you were wrong?

In the quote I provided, he was. Now you are providing a different quote. And you misquoted that as well.


Irrelevant. The point you made was incorrect. You misquoted the article. The article clearly stated those were once laws in Wisconsin, not 19th century America. I cannot believe you are trying to spin it any other way.


The founders did not believe in heavy regulations of corporations. You are completely wrong. They did not speak much of corporations. What seems to be the case judging by views at the time is that they would not like the idea of corporate personhood. Neither do libertarians, so they are in agreement.

Here is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and the son of Robert F. Kennedy...Words of wisdom from a liberal.


Is this another quote? Because it makes no sense to say "this" when currently "this" is Obama. And Bush was a big government guy himself, btw.


The founders were ultimately concerned about limiting government. All evidence points to that fact. Neither modern day liberals are conservatives truly advocate limited government as the founders did.

Dwight Eisenhower, another Republican, in his most famous speech, warned America against domination by the military industrial complex.
As do libertarians.


All these quotes are irrelevant because you are not quoting founders or libertarians whom we are comparing. Quoting FDR tells me nothing about the current debate about whether libertarians and the founders held similar ideologies.

In order to do that, we need an informed public and an activist public. And we need a vigorous and an independent press that is willing to speak truth to power. And we no longer have that in the United States of America. And that's something that puts all the values we care about in jeopardy, because you cannot have a clean environment if you do not have a functioning democracy. They are intertwined; they go together. There is a direct correlation around the planet between the level of tyranny and the level of environmental destruction.

The only way you can protect the environment is through a true, locally based democracy. You can protect it for a short term under a tyranny, where there is some kind of beneficent dictator but, over the long term, the only way we can protect the environment is by ensuring our democracy. That has got to be the number-one issue for all of us: to try to restore American democracy, because without that we lose all of the other things that we value.

Completely irrelevant to the current discussion.

Let me remind you what we are talking about here. I am saying that the views of the founding fathers are most closely represented by modern libertarianism. Libertarians believe in strict interpretation of the constitution, noninterventionist foreign policies, laissez faire economics, limited government, no central banks, and high civil liberties. The founders did as well. Both libertarians and the founders are not fond of the idea of corporate personhood.

You say the founders are like liberals. By liberals do you mean the American definition of liberal, or classical liberalism? Because I have a feeling you are conflating the two.

You keep hacking up my posts and deleting what you don't want to hear. It is rude, and creates a disjointed conversation. Why can't you just hit the 'Quote' button, and compose your reply in structures called paragraphs? You are not following the purpose of the Quote feature...you are selectively editing. If you provide someone else's words, you merely add a link.

I have provide evidence that our founding fathers believed in heavy regulation of corporations. The author I provided lives in Wisconsin, but the heavy regulations in the state of Wisconsin mirror similar ones on the books in most other states.

Let's go back to that article and read what prefaced the list of regulations:

The Legacy of the Founding Parents

by Jane Anne Morris
Madison, Wisc.

The people who founded this nation didn't fight a war so that they could have a couple of "citizen representatives" sitting in on meetings of the British East India Company. They carried out a revolution in order to be free of oppression: corporate, governmental, or otherwise; and to replace it with democratic self-government.

It seems that things have slipped a little. Today, as soon as any group or movement puts together a coherent critique of the role of corporations, tongues start clucking. Politicians, mainstream reformers, degreed experts, and media commentators fall all over each other in an effort to dismiss such clear, practical, focused thinking as mere "conspiracy theories" cooked up by unbalanced "crackpots."

They forget that 17th century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes called corporations "worms in the body politic." Adam Smith condemned them for their effect in curtailing "natural liberty." And most of the so-called "founding fathers" of this nation shared an opinion of corporations that today would earn them the label "lunatic fringe" from the same mainstream tongue-cluckers.

Those who won independence from England hated corporations as much as they hated the King. For it was through state-chartered corporations that the British government carried out some of its most pernicious oppression. Governments extending their power by means of corporations, and corporations themselves taking on the powers of government, are not new problems.

Because they were well aware of the track record of government-chartered corporations, and because they guarded their freedom so jealously, citizens of the newly independent United States of America chartered only a handful of corporations in the several decades after independence.

On those few occasions when states did charter a corporation, "the powers which the corporation might exercise in carrying out its purposes were sparingly conferred and strictly construed," Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in 1933.

But inevitably, the generation that had fought against injustices perpetrated by corporations like the British East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company was followed by others whose memories of corporate oppression were less vivid. Still, the warnings against corporations continued.

On the eve of his becoming Chief Justice of Wisconsin's Supreme Court, Edward G. Ryan said ominously in 1873,

"[There] is looming up a new and dark power ... the enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power.... The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine, which shall rule-wealth or man [sic]; which shall lead -money or intellect; who shall fill public stations -educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital...."

The feudal serfs of corporate capital made a lot of headway during the next fifteen years. But in 1888 President Grover Cleveland, in his Fourth Annual Message to Congress, echoed Justice Ryan's sentiments:

"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters," Cleveland stated.

Well into the twentieth century corporate excesses were acknowledged and condemned by some pretty prominent persons. Louis D. Brandeis, a multimillionaire (from his own law practice and astute investments) by the time he became a Supreme Court Justice in 1916, referred to corporations as "the Frankenstein monster which States have created by their corporation laws."

Far from being "radical," harsh criticism of corporations has a long, respectable, and mainstream political lineage.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This IS the seminal issue between our founders and the Austrian schoolers. It is the difference between a democratic society and a plutocratic society.

 

[ShackledNation]

You keep hacking up my posts and deleting what you don't want to hear. It is rude, and creates a disjointed conversation. Why can't you just hit the 'Quote' button, and compose your reply in structures called paragraphs? You are not following the purpose of the Quote feature...you are selectively editing. If you provide someone else's words, you merely add a link.

I am deleting what I do not respond to. You don't respond to everything I say. You quote it all, but ignore most of it. I have no way of knowing what statement exactly you are responding to.

I have provide evidence that our founding fathers believed in heavy regulation of corporations. The author I provided lives in Wisconsin, but the heavy regulations in the state of Wisconsin mirror similar ones on the books in most other states.

Where the author lives is irrelevant. The article specifically said that the regulations listed were regulations once in Wisconsin. You incorrectly said there were American regulations of the 19th century. Also, state regulations does not equal federal regulation. Libertarians, like the founders, believes that these issues should be left to the states. Libertarians have differing positions on corporations, as I have told you one million times. Libertarians do not like the idea of corporate personhood. Get that into your head.

Let's go back to that article and read what prefaced the list of regulations:

The Legacy of the Founding Parents

by Jane Anne Morris
Madison, Wisc.

The people who founded this nation didn't fight a war so that they could have a couple of "citizen representatives" sitting in on meetings of the British East India Company. They carried out a revolution in order to be free of oppression: corporate, governmental, or otherwise; and to replace it with democratic self-government.

It seems that things have slipped a little. Today, as soon as any group or movement puts together a coherent critique of the role of corporations, tongues start clucking. Politicians, mainstream reformers, degreed experts, and media commentators fall all over each other in an effort to dismiss such clear, practical, focused thinking as mere "conspiracy theories" cooked up by unbalanced "crackpots."

They forget that 17th century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes called corporations "worms in the body politic." Adam Smith condemned them for their effect in curtailing "natural liberty." And most of the so-called "founding fathers" of this nation shared an opinion of corporations that today would earn them the label "lunatic fringe" from the same mainstream tongue-cluckers.

Those who won independence from England hated corporations as much as they hated the King. For it was through state-chartered corporations that the British government carried out some of its most pernicious oppression. Governments extending their power by means of corporations, and corporations themselves taking on the powers of government, are not new problems.

Because they were well aware of the track record of government-chartered corporations, and because they guarded their freedom so jealously, citizens of the newly independent United States of America chartered only a handful of corporations in the several decades after independence.

On those few occasions when states did charter a corporation, "the powers which the corporation might exercise in carrying out its purposes were sparingly conferred and strictly construed," Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in 1933.

But inevitably, the generation that had fought against injustices perpetrated by corporations like the British East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company was followed by others whose memories of corporate oppression were less vivid. Still, the warnings against corporations continued.

On the eve of his becoming Chief Justice of Wisconsin's Supreme Court, Edward G. Ryan said ominously in 1873,

"[There] is looming up a new and dark power ... the enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power.... The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine, which shall rule-wealth or man [sic]; which shall lead -money or intellect; who shall fill public stations -educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital...."

The feudal serfs of corporate capital made a lot of headway during the next fifteen years. But in 1888 President Grover Cleveland, in his Fourth Annual Message to Congress, echoed Justice Ryan's sentiments:

"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters," Cleveland stated.

Well into the twentieth century corporate excesses were acknowledged and condemned by some pretty prominent persons. Louis D. Brandeis, a multimillionaire (from his own law practice and astute investments) by the time he became a Supreme Court Justice in 1916, referred to corporations as "the Frankenstein monster which States have created by their corporation laws."

Far from being "radical," harsh criticism of corporations has a long, respectable, and mainstream political lineage.

Requoting an article ad nauseum does not add anything to the discussion. Again, libertarians do not like corporate personhood. Also, this is an opinion piece, not a direct source of the founders beliefs.

This IS the seminal issue between our founders and the Austrian schoolers. It is the difference between a democratic society and a plutocratic society.

I am comparing the founders and libertarians. Either way, Austrian schoolers do not favor corporate personhood. You seem to be arguing the founders didn't either. If anything, you are proving a closer tie than ever. Libertarians speak out against corporatism, frequently references the military industrial complex and big business in bed with big government. Please explain to me the difference between the libertarian position and the founders position that somehow discredits every other issue.

I would say the idea of limited government is even more important to the founders ideology. The entire Constitution was based on such principles. The founders would limit government's ability to grant corporate privileges. Out of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians, it is libertarians who believe in limited government across the board as the founders did. You are using this issue of corporations as a cop out.

 

[Bfgrn]

You keep hacking up my posts and deleting what you don't want to hear. It is rude, and creates a disjointed conversation. Why can't you just hit the 'Quote' button, and compose your reply in structures called paragraphs? You are not following the purpose of the Quote feature...you are selectively editing. If you provide someone else's words, you merely add a link.

I am deleting what I do not respond to. You don't respond to everything I say. You quote it all, but ignore most of it. I have no way of knowing what statement exactly you are responding to.

I have provide evidence that our founding fathers believed in heavy regulation of corporations. The author I provided lives in Wisconsin, but the heavy regulations in the state of Wisconsin mirror similar ones on the books in most other states.

Where the author lives is irrelevant. The article specifically said that the regulations listed were regulations once in Wisconsin. You incorrectly said there were American regulations of the 19th century. Also, state regulations does not equal federal regulation. Libertarians, like the founders, believes that these issues should be left to the states. Libertarians have differing positions on corporations, as I have told you one million times. Libertarians do not like the idea of corporate personhood. Get that into your head.

Let's go back to that article and read what prefaced the list of regulations:

The Legacy of the Founding Parents

by Jane Anne Morris
Madison, Wisc.

The people who founded this nation didn't fight a war so that they could have a couple of "citizen representatives" sitting in on meetings of the British East India Company. They carried out a revolution in order to be free of oppression: corporate, governmental, or otherwise; and to replace it with democratic self-government.

It seems that things have slipped a little. Today, as soon as any group or movement puts together a coherent critique of the role of corporations, tongues start clucking. Politicians, mainstream reformers, degreed experts, and media commentators fall all over each other in an effort to dismiss such clear, practical, focused thinking as mere "conspiracy theories" cooked up by unbalanced "crackpots."

They forget that 17th century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes called corporations "worms in the body politic." Adam Smith condemned them for their effect in curtailing "natural liberty." And most of the so-called "founding fathers" of this nation shared an opinion of corporations that today would earn them the label "lunatic fringe" from the same mainstream tongue-cluckers.

Those who won independence from England hated corporations as much as they hated the King. For it was through state-chartered corporations that the British government carried out some of its most pernicious oppression. Governments extending their power by means of corporations, and corporations themselves taking on the powers of government, are not new problems.

Because they were well aware of the track record of government-chartered corporations, and because they guarded their freedom so jealously, citizens of the newly independent United States of America chartered only a handful of corporations in the several decades after independence.

On those few occasions when states did charter a corporation, "the powers which the corporation might exercise in carrying out its purposes were sparingly conferred and strictly construed," Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in 1933.

But inevitably, the generation that had fought against injustices perpetrated by corporations like the British East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company was followed by others whose memories of corporate oppression were less vivid. Still, the warnings against corporations continued.

On the eve of his becoming Chief Justice of Wisconsin's Supreme Court, Edward G. Ryan said ominously in 1873,

"[There] is looming up a new and dark power ... the enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power.... The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine, which shall rule-wealth or man [sic]; which shall lead -money or intellect; who shall fill public stations -educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital...."

The feudal serfs of corporate capital made a lot of headway during the next fifteen years. But in 1888 President Grover Cleveland, in his Fourth Annual Message to Congress, echoed Justice Ryan's sentiments:

"Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters," Cleveland stated.

Well into the twentieth century corporate excesses were acknowledged and condemned by some pretty prominent persons. Louis D. Brandeis, a multimillionaire (from his own law practice and astute investments) by the time he became a Supreme Court Justice in 1916, referred to corporations as "the Frankenstein monster which States have created by their corporation laws."

Far from being "radical," harsh criticism of corporations has a long, respectable, and mainstream political lineage.

Requoting an article ad nauseum does not add anything to the discussion. Again, libertarians do not like corporate personhood. Also, this is an opinion piece, not a direct source of the founders beliefs.

This IS the seminal issue between our founders and the Austrian schoolers. It is the difference between a democratic society and a plutocratic society.

I am comparing the founders and libertarians. Either way, Austrian schoolers do not favor corporate personhood. You seem to be arguing the founders didn't either. If anything, you are proving a closer tie than ever. Libertarians speak out against corporatism, frequently references the military industrial complex and big business in bed with big government. Please explain to me the difference between the libertarian position and the founders position that somehow discredits every other issue.

I would say the idea of limited government is even more important to the founders ideology. The entire Constitution was based on such principles. The founders would limit government's ability to grant corporate privileges. Out of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians, it is libertarians who believe in limited government across the board as the founders did. You are using this issue of corporations as a cop out.

Let's cut to the chase. Do you believe in government regulation of corporations?

A man Hayek greatly admired was Edmund Burke.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Edmund Burke

 

[ShackledNation]

Let's cut to the chase. Do you believe in government regulation of corporations?

A man Hayek greatly admired was Edmund Burke.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Edmund Burke

I want to make sure we are both talking about corporations not plain old businesses (I am sure you are, but I want to emphasize that). I don't believe corporations should be able to engage in fraud, get around the law, evade taxes, and receive bailouts. I don't believe they should be granted trade protectionism or receive any form of subsidy. I guess you have to be more specific about regulations for me to give a better answer. If you mean regulating what a corporate can or cannot create, I would say absolutely not. If you mean insuring contracts, property rights, and protecting against fraudulent business practices, I would say 100% yes.

This article sums up my views pretty well:
http://mises.org/daily/2816

I highly recommend reading the whole thing, or at least skimming it.

Either way, the single issue of corporate regulation cannot make or break the claim that libertarians hold views most similar to the founding fathers. I understand your point, I really do, but the founder also believed in states rights, a very limited government, non interventionism, personal freedoms, and so many other issues that libertarians espouse. When it comes to foreign and social policy, libertarians and the founders agree close to 100%. When it comes to economic policy, I would say libertarians are closer than conservatives or liberals to the views of the economy. When it comes to state vs. federal government and the constitution, libertarians win again. Both conservatives and liberals tend to use the federal government to enforce their agendas rather than the states, and the general welfare and interstate commerce clauses are abused by both ideologies to some extent.

Beliefs on the single issue of corporate regulation do not in any way negate the myriad of other significant similarities. To me, it even seems like the distrust of corporations was grounded in the distrust of the government that granted them their charters. If you look at what corporations were in the 18th century, you would notice that they were quasi-governmental companies supported by mercantalism and granted monopoly privileges throughout the colonies. These economic issues were behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. King George "wanted to forcefully impose British mercantilism on the colonies." Beginning with the Molasses Act of 1733, there were many egregious attempts of Great Britain to tax and restrict the trade of the colonists: the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townsend Acts, and the Tea Act, which ultimately resulted in the Boston Tea Party. The reason corporations were hated was because government allowed them to restrict trade.

 

[editec]

The founding fathers ALSO believed in high tariffs to insure that the USA maintained a strong industrial base such that its people were employed and self sufficient.

Now what modern libertarian supports such a policy?

 

[ShackledNation]

The founding fathers ALSO believed in high tariffs to insure that the USA maintained a strong industrial base such that its people were employed and self sufficient.

Now what modern libertarian supports such a policy?

That is not exactly true. Thomas Jefferson condemned Alexander Hamilton's high tariff rate proposal. The intent of the earliest tariffs was to raise revenue, not protect industry. Many libertarians support a low tariff in place of our current tax system.

But you are correct that high protectionist tariffs came into being, as early as 1816. But it was a debated issue. Either way, that is just one small aspect of the larger issue of trade.