Even in time of war? Corporations in the US are not obliged to obey the laws about aiding and abetting the enemy?
No, not during a time of war. Of course, we aren't at war with Cuba - at least as it has historically been defined - but American interests are legally prohibited from transacting business with them. And, to be sure, a Libertarian government would harbor a far smaller definition of what justifies war than we've seen on the American political scene this century.
I believe that, under that philosophy, we'd have attacked Japan after the attack at Pearl Harbor and targeted al Qaeda/the Taliban after September 11th, but I'm quite sure that American troops would not have seen World War I, the European theatre during World War II, Korea, Vietnam, either of the two Gulf Wars, or any of the smaller conflicts we've become embroiled in.
What about the Constitution?
You are right to ask that question, especially if rhetorical.
Does a corporation in the US have the right to violate the constitution?
No one, individual or corporate, has a "right" to violate the Constitution. Are you being facetious?
What about individual rights?
Individual rights and corporate rights are essentially the same in the eyes of the Constitution. They both contemplate private property rights, albeit on different scales, and I can't think of anywhere in the great document where the Framers singled out the product of private capital decisions for higher government scrutiny.
Do corporations have the right to violate an individuals rights when a government does not?
No one has a "right" to violate an individual's rights, but a private contract entered into by, say, an employee (individual) and an employer (corporation) is just that: private. It is unconstitutional for the government to interfere in such relationships, unless law is broken.
I think a corporation should have less rights than an individual, not more.
And Libertarians think that one is essentially a manifestation of the other, just as the Constitution has it. The Constitution does not provide for or sanction penalties for size, success, or influence. Those concepts, as well as the spectre of entitlement at the expense of the successful, are new philosophical paradigms in America, constructs of and progressions from Roosevelt's New Deal socialism.
LPS5 |
