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You, Michael Calhoun, wrote:

>Again, I'd love to hear new ideas and comments on any of the
>above.
Your suggestions are astute, but what about simply piercing the corporate
veil? This is a legal expression to mean holding the people behind the
corporation
liable for the corporation's deeds. The whole idea of the corporation is
limited liability; unlike a partnership, a corporation's directors cannot
under most
circumstances be sued. Why not change that?

Another suggestion would be to end the corporation's legal status as a
"person" under law. Thanks to that little principle, corporations have
equal rights to
the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, however, corporations live
forever, can
be in more than one place at a time, or no place at all. There is also no
person behind the "person" that can be sued. (See above.)  Thus
corporations get
all the perks of personhood and none of the drawbacks.

An example is the common situation where  a corporation's minions, acting
at
the clear if unspoken behest of the corporation's directors, do something
criminal, like bribing a politician, or dumping hazardous waste, or
gypping unwary
consumers. Appeals courts often reverse judgments against such
corporations (and
guilty verdicts against corporate officers), reasoning that unless the
officers
of the corporation clearly authorized the conduct, neither they nor the
corporation should be held liable for the actions of the miscreant
employee. This
kind of logic is a little like the multiple personality defense: I didn't
know
what my other personality was doing.

One final suggestion would be revoking the corporate charter. This was a
plank
in Nader's platform if I am not mistaken. All corporations exist in
theory at
the suffrance of the state and by extension the people. They are given
limited
liability (see above) as a *privilege* in exchange for contributing to the
welfare of society. At least that was the original theory behind the
creation of
the corporate structure. Nowadays of course corporations are like
Frankenstein's
monster. Nonetheless it is perfectly possible, and legal, for a
government to
yank a corporation's charter. It never happens, of course. Needless to
say,if a
corporation were to lose its charter there would probably be any number of
other states/countries willing to reincorporate it (corrupt politicians
not exactly
being an endangered species), but there would still be real leverage in
the
threat of doing so. Why do people think nearly all corporations
incorporate in
Delaware? Because the laws there are extremely favorable to corporations.
By the
same token, there are real advantages to corporations being incorporated
in the
U.S.--all corporate bellyaching about burdensome tax laws, environmental
regs,
etc. notwithstanding, the U.S. is the most pro-business country in the
Western
world. Imagine losing the perks that come with being a U.S. corporation.
The
mind boggles.

My general feeling is that the more "radical" the proposal (worker
takeover of
the corporation, external regulatory bodies, etc.) the less likely they
are to
ever work. The fact is that the levers already exist to bring
corporations to
heel; they just need to be pulled. Getting the people who control those
levers
to pull them is the crux of the matter.
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_________
Tresy Kilbourne, Seattle WA
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public,
or in some contrivance to raise prices."  --Adam Smith