Corporate Libertarianism

Photo be Diane Arbus

After a birthday conversation with my friend Scott, I got to thinking about the connections between libertarianism and those darn artificial legal entities. We've all heard the sales tag, libertarians believe in liberty. Hard to fault, but the devil is in the details. (I believe in Motherhood, but I'm a little squishy on apple pie; orthogonal libertarian, I'd guess) As the story is told, releasing our multinationals from the onerous burden of law and petty regulation would allow the currently impacted genius of American entrepreneurial productivity to fully flow, nourishing our collective material desires, and providing a genuine invisible hand to wipe up any and all spills. (dang, I want my Sexy-Brite® pie-product™ to be pumpkin flavored©). Oddly enough, there is some fine print. (Do Not look behind the curtain or a not-so-invisible foot will kick your tuchis) But what the heck, here are a few regulations that a truly libertarian commentator might want to leave in the dustbin of history.

• The Corporation: Originally codified to limit liability to the amount invested by a small group, the corporation is now a legal person, has Constitutional rights and freedoms, laws shielding it from responsibility for actions taken by its members, a unique accounting algebra, and direct access to government welfare, i.e. your tax dollars. A libertarian business, of course, would spurn any special rights as being ideologically incorrect.
• Limited Executive Liability: Our hero scoffs at such an idea. He earns his money through his own unaided efforts.(pace: Ann Rand) If an accounting irregularity is found, his innate honesty compels him to find the janitor responsible and feed her to the outer darkness, tout de suite.
• Handpicked Boards of Directors and Compensation Committees: Without those pesky laws insulating management from stockholder, the libertarian executive would naturally gravitate to open nomination and deliberation. Our Director demands that his compensation is concomitant with his results. (it was probably those "hate America first" people that weaseled the Private Securities Reform Act ('95) through congress)
• PACs, Holding Companies, Legal off-sheet accounting: Our fellow doesn't need any of this. He sells a good or a service. (or at least he did, before off-shore Monte with The House of Cards became such a personal profit center. Your money, my bet, here's the bill)

And so on. While the sophomore in me retains a bit of romantic excitement over the idea of no rules, (we be bad, we can handle it) the been there - done that portion suspects that the most vocal business ideologists intend to go half-way, (and you know where the line will be drawn ) then adopt an easy does it, wait and see campaign. (leavened with a piquant touch of regulating the consumer, we don't want no anarchic-syndicalism 'round here) On the other hand, we could avoid any flapdoodle and let a closed committee negotiate an international treaty. (like, for instance, NAFTA) Why whine about Bush or Obama when a suit, sitting in a boardroom in Copenhagen, could enforce the Divine Right of Capitol professionally. I'm sure that you can see the invisible hand, holding our best interests at its heart.