I start this post by openly admitting that it is a hostile response to several readers from another blog page to which I used to contribute. I no longer see much value in writing to those who do not wish to learn – even at the cost of having to give up something they had previously held to be an undeniable truth. I have had to do this, myself, so I know it can be painful. But I seek the truth, not what I want to be true. This is why I will no longer be cross-posting my work on this other blog. If you want to follow me, you’ll have to follow The Road to Concord and The OYL. So, with this said, let me try again to explain why we can never claim land or ‘intellectual’ property as Natural Rights. Just remember, I have already stated this is a hostile response to those who refuse to understand, so, if this does not apply to you, please understand the hostility is not aimed at you. On the other hand, if it does apply to you…

As I explain in my post, Defining Natural Rights, a Natural Right is something we can claim as our own as an inherent extension of our being while in the pure State of Nature. I use the illustration of a deserted island to make the point: whatever you can claim as a personal right on a deserted island is a Natural Right. But notice: there is no way for you to claim a Natural Right to the island or any idea you might have. This is because no person can claim the earth or an idea. They existed before us, and they will exist long after we are gone. This should make it self-evident that they are not Natural Rights. If you happen to be one who rejects this claim, then I tell you that I own the earth and the rights to all ideas. They are my Natural Rights, they belong to me and you must pay to use any of them. Now refute me! I wish you luck because, without the ability to fall back on the notion of Natural Rights as our founders, as Locke, as the Bible explain them, you will not be able to do so. At best, you will be forced to fall back on the principle of ‘might-makes-right,’ and that is the negation of rights.

So, how do we arrive at a point where land and ideas can be treated as personal property? This is simple – for those who bother to think about it. We pass laws to create them. This is why the Indians laughed at the White Man when he offered to buy their land: they did not understand how someone could own something that was not his to claim or own. In this sense, the Indians understood the principles of Natural Law better than those who claimed to have invented (incidentally, this is exactly what the Apostle, Paul, said in Romans 1-2: that the principles of God’s Natural Law are written on the heart of every man – even those who do not know God).

So, if it takes an act of government to create property rights in land or ideas, then who created the government? People did, through their Natural Right to Contract. This is the essence of the Social Contract: the application of a Natural Right to create a government to protect the Natural Rights of all individuals equally through the rule of law. And here is where the ability to be honest and use reason both come into play. Natural Law limits those things to which we can agree. We have no Natural Right to give away or demand in return that which is inalienable. So we cannot form a government that makes government higher than the people, nor can we agree to enter into slavery as part of the Social Contract. And in this same sense, we cannot create a Natural Right to something by using the government. In short, everything government does has to comply with the rules of Natural Law or it is a violation of that law. This means government cannot make land or ideas into a Natural Right. And that means – by logical extension – that, as the creation of the Social Contract, such forms of property are controlled by that contract. This then means they are under public authority, and – again – this is what both Jefferson and Franklin are saying here:

“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:45

“All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”

–Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783, Ref: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1

Both Jefferson and Franklin are saying that we have a Natural Right only to those things necessary to sustain our lives, and that the property that has been created by an act of government falls outside this definition. That property which is created by the people remains under the authority of the people. Therefore, those who reject this understanding of what types of property are and are not Natural Rights also reject the founders and – as Franklin says – have no right to claim the benefits of the laws creating this property because they want those benefits without the corresponding duties and responsibilities.

If you are a ‘Conservative,’ and you think you have a Natural Right to your land, or your ideas or your corporation, then I would ask you to explain from whence that right comes. If you were suddenly stranded on a deserted island, would you still have those rights? The answer is no, but if you disagree, then I submit that what you are really demanding is a special right. You want society to pass a law to give you something to control without having to also be accountable to the people in return. In short, you are guilty of the very accusations the Marxist makes against you when it comes to exploiting people through these forms of property. Go read Scripture and you will find that God focused more on the duties of property owners to the poor than He did on your rights. So how dare you claim the mantle of our founders and of liberty while rejecting the foundations upon which both are laid!

This also applies to what we call Capitalism. We have a Natural Right to enter into joint ventures, but this sort of Contract yields partnerships – not corporations. In order to collect and control capital the way our large corporations do today, or to buy and sell stock, we had to pass more laws. These things did not exist prior to those laws. This means they are no more a Natural Right than land or ideas and are just as subject to control by the people as these other things. The creation never becomes greater than its creator. It always remains subject to the control of its creator. Any attempt to change this relationship is a serious breach of Natural Law and it will – it always results in catastrophic failure.

But this does not mean there is no way to create and own these things without violating Natural Law. All we need to do is look to the way our founders did it. They allowed corporations, but they kept them under strict control. They were usually known as Charter Companies, and they were allowed for specific purposes that benefitted the general public and were granted set periods of time to operate. After those periods, they had to either be renewed or they were automatically dissolved. Also, all stock holders had equal votes in directing the company – no matter how many shares they held in the company. This was done to hold people accountable for the actions of the company and, if laws were broken, the company was dissolved – not fined – and the owners were all charged under the law.

Lager operations were equally possible. They were called co-ops. Suppose we wanted to start a large, national cell phone network but we lacked the necessary capital to make it happen. In the past, many smaller companies would combine to form a co-op in which they would pool their assets, build the network and then share it as common property. This was actually a better way of doing business as it provided for a stronger economy. Instead of having only a few large companies, there would have been dozens of smaller ones all across the nation. So, if one or two companies were mismanaged, and they folded, it would not serve to further consolidate – a practice of those who seek power and control – it would just open the door for someone else to rise up and fill the void. Go look into why there are so few American car companies where there once were dozens and you will find FDR and the government picking and choosing which companies would be allowed to survive. Now, because they are so large and have a partnership with government, it is nearly impossible to start a new car company without getting squashed by the big three. To think that you have a Natural Right to acquire publically created property and then turn it against other people so they cannot earn a living or use those same rights is the height of tyranny, yet, this is exactly what the ‘Conservative’ claims is his ‘Natural Right.’ Well, I reject that claim – because it is a lie!

Now, to those who may think me a champion of Marxism, I caution you to re-think that assumption. I reject Marxism in its entirety. All I am saying is that its accusation against those who think they can make the world into their private property by an act of law is valid, but little else of your ideology has any value at all. In fact, Marxism is worse that exploitation by the Capitalist and, given a choice between the two, I would choose the exploitation of the Capitalist. He is not evil, as are you: he is just greedy and blind. There is a significant difference.

What must be remembered is that a right to property in land and ideas is created to help society, not to provide some special right or privilege for the individual that he can then use against the people who created it in the first place. And, if you are going to accept the privileges created by society, then you must also accept the responsibilities and duties to society which accompany them. You do not get to claim the benefit and refuse the responsibility and duty. If you do so, then society has every right to take away the thing it created. Your right exists only as long and in as far as society says it does. However, society also has a responsibility to those who are exercising these rights according to those duties and responsibilities. Just because a person does well with his land or idea rights, it is not just cause for society to then treat him as a source of revenue in any greater proportion than any other citizen. If a right is to be granted to a person, it must be protected as a right unless and until the owner demonstrates that he/she is unwilling to maintain the corresponding duties that accompany that right. And so long as the owner does maintain those duties, society is unjust to change the arrangement creating those rights. Remember, this is all about the rule of law within the confines of Natural Rights and Natural Law, and inherent in Natural Law are mutually supporting duties and responsibilities to society and every individual in it.

Now, if you have read this and you still do not see that what I am saying is consistent with the founding principles and ideals of this nation, congratulations: you are part of the problem!

This post is primarily addressed to my ‘Conservative’ friends, but also to those few ‘Libertarians’ who happen to follow my blogs, as well. I have written several posts about corporations to which these friends of mine have taken offense. They seem to think I am attacking private property. Some have gone so far as to tell me I am sounding like Marx. The problem, however, does not lie with me, but with their flawed understanding of property. They do not differentiate between types of property, especially where its nature and origins are concerned. Our founders did, and they tried to explain it to us. But we have accepted a perversion of what they believed that is designed not to protect property rights, but to consolidate them among a privileged elite. SO I am writing this post in hopes of clearing the air about what the founders taught me about property, and I start with the words Franklin and Jefferson:

“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:45

“All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”

–Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783, Ref: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1

Jefferson tends to be a little more liberal with the implications of property than Franklin, but they both make it clear that a right to non-moveable property does not exist in nature. In order to make land, intellectual rights or corporations into ‘property,’ government must first be established and civil legislation creating these artificial entities must be passed. It is at this point that Franklin clearly explains that, even if such forms of property are allowed to be treated as ‘private,’ they are not. They owe their very existence to government, and if the government owes its existence to the people, then – by extension – so do these forms of artificial property. In other words: if the people created them, the people can regulate them.

At the very foundation of this arrangement is the extension of Natural Rights. If the Creator grants our Natural Rights, then the Creator owns and controls them – not the created. This is why the founders said that certain rights are inalienable, and that no one can justly take them, nor can they be given away or sold. This relationship would then extend to those rights created by society through the Social Contract. For a land owner to tell the creator of his property rights that it no longer has any authority or power over the right it created would be no different than a man telling God He no longer has any authority or control over the land owner’s life. The relationship is the same: in both cases, the created is trying to claim it is now equal to or above the creator. If this assumption is ever accepted, the very foundations of Natural Law would be destroyed. Luckily, Natural Law cannot be destroyed by its creations, which is why we suffer so much calamity when we try to re-write those Natural Laws.

Now, let’s look at the different types of property. Neither Jefferson nor Franklin is saying we do not have a Natural Right to moveable property. We certainly do – especially to that property which is necessary to preserve our lives. Our just claim to this sort of property is found through the application of our labor, and I explain this in more detail here. But land is not something we can claim a right to in Nature. Before a right to land, intellectual property and other such entities can be created, government must first be formed and laws governing these forms of property must be written and agreed to by the people. From that point forward, society – through its elected representatives and legislative body – may grant individuals a limited ability to treat that property as personal or private, but society still retains ultimate control over those rights because society created them. Thus, there can be no Natural Right to land, intellectual property or corporations because they are not natural. They are created by man, and men have the Natural Right to control their own creations. But note: it is not the land, the thoughts or intellectual ideas that have been created here; only the civil right to treat them as personal or private.

The founders drew heavily from the Bible is designing our government. Franklin pointedly said so in a letter to a friend of his after the Constitution had been completed. IN the Bible, land is allowed to be treated as private property for set periods of time, after which, it was returned to the family clans to be re-sold from start. In this way, the concentration of wealth was prevented and the renewal of the free market was assured. Think of it as a form of economic renewal, or fertilization of the market. The founders accepted this concept, though they understood it could not be employed in the same fashion in this land. So they sought to achieve the same goal through the inheritance laws. If we were to argue for the founders’ understanding of how to preserve a healthy and free market today, we would be called – and I have been – a Marxist. The common assumption today is that our founders were not against the concentration of wealth, which – if this were true — would then begs the question, why would Jefferson write these words?

“If the overgrown wealth of an individual is deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra-taxation violates it.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816. ME 14:466

At once, we see two principles of Natural Law at work here. First, the State (i.e. the people) has a right to control the concentration of wealth if they believe it threatens their liberty. In this narrow sense, Marx was right o be concerned – as men such as George Soros have clearly demonstrated. But then, look what Jefferson says: he says we should use a system as similar to that of the Bible to deal with this concentration of wealth – not taxation! Jefferson is clearly admitting that a concentration of power such as that which we see in modern corporations can be a threat to the nation. He also says that the nation has a right to control this concentration of power – as he argued in the quote above and I just expounded upon. But, according to Jefferson, taxation is not the remedy. This is because it is an un-equal treatment of citizens: an unequal application of the law — in short, a violation of Natural Law. Instead, Jefferson is arguing for a system or policy that achieves the same goal while operating according to the principles of Natural Law.

This is all I am arguing for: not the abolition of a right to treat land or intellectual property as private (so long as we do so responsibly), but that we structure our society and economy so that it operates within the principles of Natural Law. Corporations totally destroy any possibility of doing so because they become people with life-spans that – theoretically – do not end. And thus, they violate another of Jefferson’s principles of liberty: that the dead should never be allowed to inherit or control the living. I simply do not see how anyone can oppose this position and still claim to be for liberty. In truth, if a person argues for things that violate Natural Law instead of supporting it, they are arguing for anything but liberty. They are claiming to be above the Laws of Nature, and that is a place where I refuse to stand. I am not that brave (nor foolish).

The Hobby Lobby case is an excellent example of what happens when we turn Natural Law on its head to suit our desires rather than seek to structure our society to work according to that same Natural Law. In short, it illustrates what happens when one tries to put themselves in the place of God. When we do that, we fall under the condemnation of Isaiah 5:20-21. And, even if you do not believe in God or the Bible, you would be wise to read Isaiah’s warning before you dismiss it because it most certainly applies here. Now, let me show you how and why it applies.

On its surface, the Hobby Lobby case is about a corporation’s religious rights. I have already written about the absurdity of such a claim here, but it should be apparent when you think of a corporation going to your local church to worship. Have you ever seen a corporation in church? No, because it is not a real person. The problem is that we treat it like one for the purposes of shielding its owners from legal liability for their actions. So, if people did not want to claim what is essentially a ‘special’ right – freedom from responsibility – then this case would be easy. If Hobby Lobby were a fictitious name for a business owned and operated by a limited number of people who were directly responsible for their actions, they would be named in this case and not their business. In that case, the argument would be abundantly clear: that these people were claiming their rightful protection of their religious freedom under the Constitution and not their fictitious company. But we want to be ‘wise in our own eyes,’ so we invent artificial people to take our place before the law.

The problem is, when you do that, you cannot also claim to have a right in that artificial person without creating inconsistencies. Glenn Beck recently defended his right to his corporation, The Blaze, but – in the same segment – he attacked ‘liberals’ for their inconsistent positions. To this, I would ask Mr. Beck why he is being such a hypocrite. After all, if you own a corporation, and a corporation is a legal person, then you are claiming a right to own people. This is defined as slavery. What’s more, you are claiming a right to own a fictitious person that might also own several other fictitious persons (i.e. a corporation that owns other corporations). But, if a corporation is a legal person, could I then file a motion with the court to act on its behalf to sever it from you because I believed you were harming it? I mean, such things are done to protect people all the time, and if a corporation is a person, then why can’t this be done to protect the corporation? Do you see how claiming an exemption to Natural law for one purpose only creates inconsistencies in other areas? And how defending your special interest while resisting those of another just piles inconsistency upon inconsistency?

Now that we have dealt first and fairly with the problem from Hobby Lobby’s side, let’s now look at the other side of this coin. It is claimed that the worker has a right to demand specific health care benefits, but the company has no right to refuse to provide them. If the company objects to the workers’ demands, it is said to be infringing on the workers’ rights. There is so much wrong with this line of thinking that it is difficult to know where to start.

First, this line of argument assumes that the benefit is actually an entitlement: something owed the worker simply because the worker exists. But that defies the definition of a ‘benefit.’ In this case, a benefit is something provided in addition to your wages. That means it is voluntarily given by the company. It is not required. The company could just as easily say it will not give you anything and it would still be within its rights – because it is the company and you came to it for a job. You are the one who asked it to hire you, and you are the one who accepted the offer of compensation/pay that the company extended to you. You have no right to demand any change to this agreement after the fact and to do so places you – the worker – in the wrong. In the same way, if the company agrees to give you a benefit, it has the right to define what that benefit includes. You can ‘ask’ for what you want before you take the job, but, if the company says no and you still take the job, you have agreed to the contract and, if you try to change it by force at a later time, you are the party in the wrong. In other words, the company has rights, and those rights are equal to yours as the employee. You have no more ‘right’ to dictate to the company than you think it has right to dictate to you. On the contrary: as the one providing the job – which you sought – the company actually has the greater claim because everything involved but your labor belongs to and is under direction of the company. For you to claim the right to tell the company what it must do is no different than claiming you have the right to tell another person what they must do for you and that amounts to slavery.

Now, let’s look at the government involvement here. Under the rule of law, the government has duty to protect the interests of both the worker and the business. This means it has no business telling either of you what you can and cannot agree to unless it violates Natural Law (i.e. will result in harm, damage to property, or something to which you cannot agree – such as selling yourself into slavery). This means, if you want to work for $1/hour, the government has no business telling you that you cannot do so – nor does the government have any authority to tell the business it must pay you a minimum wage. That is a violation of the government’s just authority. Likewise, the government has no power to force a business to give you a benefit, let alone set the extent and limits of that benefit. To do so violates the rights of the business – the very rights government was created to protect. In other words, when it does such things, the government declares itself to be a third party with a vested interest in the affairs of other people, and with the right to direct those affairs. In short, the government declares ownership of both the worker and the company – which is, once again, slavery.

Then there is the implication that workers are somehow ‘owed’ a job, and that businesses have some sort of duty to provide them with one.  And that government has a duty to see to it that those businesses provide the benefits that the government thinks the workers should get in order to even exist.  In both cases, the business is the one who is having its rights trampled.  Would the worker agree that the government has a right to tell him where to work and for how long and for how much just because the business needs labor?  Then why is the reverse argument someone ‘acceptable?’  It isn’t.  The problem is that there are too many workers who think this is exactly how our world works: business pays government to exploit them.  This problem is further compounded by the very real fact that this  situation actually does exist where large, international corporations are concerned, and it has been well documented.  It is at the heart of what was once called Fascism, but is now known as Crony Capitalism and/or State Capitalism.  But the truth is both directions of injustice result from a perversion of the natural order of things we call Natural Law.

When we get right down to the heart of the matter here, we find that ‘rights’ have very little to do with this fight at all. This fight is about who is going to control whom, and little more. And when anyone is forced to do anything against their will, so long as they were not trying to harm another person, society or damage another’s property, the person using the force is always the party in the wrong – period. So, in this case, the two sides in the wrong are the government and the workers seeking to use the government to force their will on the business. The issue would be so much more clear if Hobby Lobby were actually the owner here, but because the owner wants to be able to avoid legal exposure, he has chosen to hide behind a legal fiction – which is a violation of Natural Law – so Hobby Lobby is now having to defend itself from an absurdity that is partially of its own making.

As for the workers and government: they are both motivated by greed and a lust for power – nothing more. There is nothing redeemable in the actions of either of these two parties. They are both despicable and repugnant to human decency and the rule of law.

I am tired of people claiming that there is nothing wrong with what they do in their ‘private lives,’ or worse, that whatever they do in that ‘private life’ is OK because ‘they were born that way.’ These assertions are patently false and absurd on their face. In reality, they are nothing more than a demand that society should ignore or even normalize their behavior. As such, claims like these represent nothing less than an attack on morality, and an attack on morality is an open declaration of war against society.

This should be self-evident to any honest person, but, sadly, too few of us have been taught the necessary tools to actually think this issue through. Instead, we have been conditioned to just react and follow the herd, and the herd is directed by our masters behind whatever ‘entertainment’ medium we happen to prefer. Still, I will try to make this as easy as possible by using absurdity and hoping it will somehow manage to break through the walls our ‘overlords’ have been trying to build around us.

If you should be allowed to do whatever you want ‘in your private life,’ does that apply to…rape? Now, before you give me that tired old condition of “so long as I don’t hurt anyone else,’ don’t. Because all that argument amounts to is another demand for permissiveness as it is always conditionally based upon your idea of harm. Case in point: what if you are dating someone who is only a year younger than you, but that year puts them under the legal age of consent. Still, your partner ‘agrees’ to have relations with you, so – “in your private life’ – the two of you have a sexual relationship. Does this mean there is no harm or wrong being done? NO! The age of consent is set for a reason: because it is assumed that persons below that age have not lived life fully enough to actually give consent. So, though you may think there is nothing wrong here, in a society that still recognizes morality, there most certainly is. And this line of reasoning can be extended to many similar examples – the majority of which do not have anything to do with sex.

Now, let’s look at this assertion that behavior is OK because “you were born that way.” I think I accept this one. So I lose this argument. Now, can I kill you, please? And no one can arrest me or do anything to me because I was born a homicidal maniac, so I am just doing what comes natural to me. Better yet, can I kill everyone you love and care about first? And I do not expect you to try to stop me. After all, I was “born this way,” so it must be OK. I mean, Nature wouldn’t make a mistake, so if I was born this way, then it is only natural – right? (If you do not see the obvious flaw in this example, please turn yourself in to the nearest psychiatric care facility).

The truth is, what you do in your ‘private life’ does affect society. That means society does have some claim on your ‘private’ behavior. The same applies to how you think you were born. We are all born with an animalistic sense of self. It is the very act of learning to fight and control that sense of self that makes us civilized – human. And this is why those who claim that society has no ‘right’ to control their private life, or that their behavior must be accepted because they were born a certain way are actually declaring war on society. And the last time I checked, all creatures have a right to defend themselves against attack, and that includes society.

Maybe next time I will discuss our duties to society. It seems we have forgotten about them, too.

This post will not make the majority of Christians, Conservatives or even many Libertarians very happy with me, but it is still the truth. I am not going to bother linking to it, but I am reacting specifically to the Supreme Court case over whether or not businesses should be allowed to claim 1st Amendment protections from the mandates of Obamacare. You can find the stories easy enough if you are interested. What I’m concerned about here is that the Obama Administration actually has the correct position regarding Hobby Lobby and corporations in general: they are not people, and, therefore, they do not have constitutionally protected rights. Sadly, any attempt to fight the Administration on the part of those seeking to preserve our rights will undermine that effort in the long run. This is the mess we make when we ignore the fundamental principles of Natural Law.

I wrote about the problem here in my post, FUNDAMENTALS OF NATURAL LAW: The Corporation Undermines Natural Law. The Obama Administration is correct: the corporation is not a real person. The Constitution only addresses Natural Rights. As such, it only speaks to real people and not artificial entities. This is a fundamental principle of Natural Law. You will not find artificial entities anywhere in Nature, so Natural Law cannot address them. If you find it in Nature, it is real and Natural Law applies. But the corporation is a human invention, and thus, it is not real and Natural Law does not apply. Ergo, there can be no Constitutional protections for a corporation. This should be ‘self-evident,’ but alas, sadly, it is not – not in this dumbed-down society.

But here is the real peril. If you try to defend the ‘rights’ of a corporation and win, you have now opened the door for government to claim rights. And, as it is the government, it is only natural that it will claim its rights are above those of the governed. After all, it is the government to which the corporation depends for its existence. Without a government license, the corporation ceases to exist, so it is only rational to concede that the government is above the corporation. So, by defending the rights of the corporation – an artificial entity – you are opening the door to tyranny by conceding rights to a greater artificial entity – the government — while destroying any rational basis to argue against it.

Nor can we argue that the corporation is still private property, because it is not – at least, not if it is a publically traded corporation. By its very nature, the ‘ownership’ is too large and too varied to be held accountable for the corporation’s actions; therefore, the corporation cannot be thought of as ‘private property.’ This should also be self-evident. The example that illustrates the point is easy. Suppose you stock in Toyota. They knew they had cars with acceleration problems but delayed taking action. In some cases, people died. Now, what if the government came and arrested you and charged you with negligent homicide? If Toyota is private property, and you own it, then – by the law – you are legally liable for those deaths. So the government would be perfectly within its right to charge and try you. But we don’t operate this way because the corporation is not private property; it is a public creation and, thus, subject to public control through government regulation. Our founders even stated this to be the case. And, if it is subject to the public for its very existence, then that means it is not private property.

The hard lesson here is that – on this narrow point – the Marxist is correct: corporations are the product of greedy people who seek to maximize their ability to generate profit while shielding themselves from legal liability for their actions. In this regard, the system we have created is evil and – in my opinion – deserving of being torn down in favor of restoring a truly free market. But to the Marxist, understand this: I said you were right on a narrow point about corporations and greed, but your solution to the problem is infinitely worse that the problem itself. If faced with corporate greed or Marxist solutions, I would chose the greed every day of the week and twice on Sunday – because your cures are poison!