Let me run this by the group.  Why not consider advocating the altering or abolishing the corporate form as we now know it?

                The corporation as we know it today is rather new predator in the economic jungle.  Until the end of the 19th century, it took an act of the legislature to create a corporation.   When legislatures did create them, it was with the proviso that they act in the public interests, and it was always for a specific purpose.  If corporations dared to venture outside of their legal purpose, their acts were “ultra vires” and therefore void or voidable. Moreover, most state prohibited corporations from owning stock in other corporations. This led the robber barons in invent the “Trust,” which formerly was the dominant means of conglomerating vast economic power.  Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson put a stop to that.

                Today, thanks to competition among the states to attract business, it merely takes filing a piece of paper and a few legal formalities to create a corporation with no other goal than making profit.  Now, one can leverage one’s own investment by selling stock in their corporation, and using various legal devices, such as “proxies,” to maintain as much control of the corporation as possible without having to venture all of one’s personal fortune.  The controllers of the corporation can appoint the Board of Directors and Executives and fix their compensation.  They may appoint themselves to these positions or run the corporation almost anonymously.   Furthermore, there are no longer any restrictions on corporations owning stock or controlling other corporations, save some ritualistic homage to disused anti-trust laws.  This ability to conglomerate creates even more leverage, which leads to huge bubbles like the one that caused the crash of 1929, and it further obscures ownership and responsibility.  Interlocking directorships can have one person serve on several corporate boards, sometimes to the demise of competition.  Private entities with heretofore unheard of economic power are the result of the corporate form.  Some corporations today are wealthier than many nations.

                For a country that professes to value individual responsible above all else, the corporation is an anomaly.   When the corporation fails, all those responsible for its failure lose only what they have currently invested therein.   Usually the insiders know when it is time bail out, leaving the suckers—usually pension funds, 401ks, and individual investors—holding the bag.   As we have seen, some bigger monsters went under leaving billions of dollars of debts unpaid and thousands of employees out of work.  Yet, the directors and executives still manage to keep their mansions and Mercedes.   It seems no one is ever responsible in a big corporation.  When the corporation is broke, one cannot sue any of the rich guys who made it broke.  You cannot jail a corporate “person.”   Who then is the blame when fraud is clearly found to exist?   The one thing that does seem to trickle-down in a corporation is blame.  There are plenty of low-level lackeys in a huge corporation on which to affix blame or to use to obscure responsibility.

                Once more, it seems the law has evolved that Corporations are legally required to be evil, greedy bastards.  The infamous case of Dodge v. Ford Motor Company set the standard in Corporate Law.  Henry Ford, finding his company had $60 million in extra profit, decided that he would give it all to the workers and the community that made him rich.  He would use the money to do things such as raise wages, create health plans, and support schools.  Minority shareholder sued Ford and won.  The rule that resulted is that the corporation must only look after the interests of the corporation.  Therefore, when you see the friendly corporate representative on T.V. telling you how much their enlightened and altruistic corporation gave charity, keep in mind that it gave only because of self-interest.   Such gifts are specifically justified as business decisions having to do with public relations—i.e. to deceive the public into believing they are giving to charity out of the goodness of their hearts.   In truth, hearts in corporations are prohibited by law. They have no loyalty to country or the human race.   If corporations were people, they would be the most pernicious and baneful people that ever existed.   

                The champions of today’s Corporate form argue that corporations create vast reservoirs of capital never before know.  Corporations also allow even people with modest means to become investors in the great industries of the world and grow their money faster than it would grow in a bank.

                 One might ask, however, “Do we want such power in the hands of profiteers without responsibility or democratic control?  Would not capitalism be much more of a tame animal without corporations? “   Imagine a world where the private economy consisted of mostly sole proprietorships and partnerships whose owners must personally suffer for their debts, torts, and criminal acts. Imagine the diversity of production instead of the corporate homogeneousness we see today.  Imagine the competition.   Major undertakings could be done by the government itself or by specially created corporations.  These corporations could exist primarily for the public interest and have specific functions.   (This is how they built the Erie Canal, for instance.).  

                Thus far, history has shown the free Corporation to be the worse government program ever devised.  Corporations are soulless monsters that devour governments even as powerful those of the United States, Russia, and China.  They make the people serfs of capital.  They unbalance the Reward and Punishments of society, putting a premium on capital manipulation rather than on productive labor.  Capitalism has never been perfect, but it certainly would not be this bad without corporations.  Capitalism is a beautiful but dangerous beast that can greatly benefit humankind when properly harnessed by democratic government.  Corporate capitalism, however, is the beast on steroids, raging out of any bonds society can employ.

                Here are some possible choices we can make:  1) Abolish capitalism; 2) Abolish all corporations; 3) Regulate the corporations in their present form; 4) Alter drastically the corporate form;  5) Leave things the same.   I am sure there are some creative solutions to the problem out there.   Please weigh in or help me figure out why I may be totally off base.