thoughts on the corporate problem: revoking coprorate charters

"It has no body to kick and no soul to damn."^[citation]

Lord Edward Thurlow, re: the corporation

Thinking back to my intro business classes, I remember learning that corporations operate under some kind of license from the people; the privileges of incorporation granted on the condition that the corporation act vaguely in the public interest (there are many permutations of corporations but I am referring to the common, public, Mircosoft/Enron type). How can that be quantified? The answer was to maximize shareholder value, which means doing anything that is legal (or, implicitly, will not incur legal costs greater than the revenue it generates) to deliver value to shareholders. It seems ideal, the corporation has a clear-cut mandate and the free shareholders make decisions on how to regulate the company through the democratic process and on how to morally distribute the proceeds of corporate activity.

We all know it doesn't work as well as it should. We have also been convinced that corporations can do whatever they want, and we can't stop them any more than we can issue commands to our neighbors.

But corporations are not our neighbors, they are not "natural persons". They come into being through a charter representing our collective blessing. Should we not be able to revoke that charter at our will?

The cost of corporate dissolution, and possibly the risk of assigning personal liability to the governing board & executives of corporations, would be enough to enable the inherent morality of these "natural persons" to overwhelm the psychopathy of the corporate entity. The stain of being kicked out of even one state would be enough; this could be a 'big stick' for the soft-spoken people of America, and may even be adopted internationally.

The format would be chosen by each state with the goal being a pure referendum, each vote counting.

this is a simplification of our system, a step toward a more raw democracy, where everyone's thoughts are counted, where injustice can't hide in pretensions of subtlety, and would serve to educate the public on corporate structure and behavior.

This would also empower states and highlight the ability of a federal system to act as a political incubator.

anyway I could probably bloviate on this issue for pages, but this is a blog so I'll stop now...