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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: combjelly who wrote (795040)7/13/2014 11:50:58 PM
From: i-node  Read Replies (1) of 1583147
 
>> The East India Company.

You think the East India Company was in any way equivalent to today's multinationals?

>> You know, the reason for the Boston Tea Party. They hated and feared the EIC. The Founders just assumed the only way they could be created is by The Crown.

The Boston Tea Party was in opposition to the tax levied on tea by the British Crown. It happened that the EIC was transporting it for profit. AFAIK, no one ever said, "We've got to dump that tea into the harbor because we can't have EIC making money on it!" It was about the tax. You know, taxation without representation, and all that?

>> The Founders just assumed the only way they could be created is by The Crown. They were wrong.

Early US corporations were formed under federal law, which IIRC required an act of Congress. It wasn't until well into 1800s that states began issuing corporate charters. By the 1850s it was settled law that states had dominion over the corporations they chartered.

I find it pretty strange you think the Founders didn't envision anyone but the Crown creating them; Jefferson himself recommended that the lifespans of corporations be limited by the Constitution. And the trust (which was nearly indistinguishable from the corporation to the naked eye) derived from Common Law. So, everyone knew at the time corporations had to exist.

And the fact of the matter is we would never have been the country we know without them. Major farm implement companies would never have been able to exist. There would have been no winning WWII. And we would never have become anything approaching a "superpower".

The biggest problems with corporations in the US today is that we foolishly tax them. It is stupid economic policy and one more example of how government is dysfunctional; preferring counterproductive economic policy over a productive one.

I really don't get the complaints about corporations. They're useful, essential, and have been crucial in the economic development we've experienced over the last couple hundred years. Get over it.
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