From: Brendan Coffey (bmc@section9.net)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 11:42:38 MDT
On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 05:30:40AM -0400, Randall Randall wrote:
> Well, I want to abolish the State itself as well, to be sure. I would
> say that it is illegitimate to remove liability in any sense by fiat,
> rather than by contract with the affected individuals. I'm not at all
> sure that a privately produced legal system would have two different
> kinds of "crime", since these seem to map directly to "crime against
> an individual" and "crime against the State", except that lawmakers
> consider murder to be more importantly a crime against the State than
> against an individual, weirdly.
>
This sort of thing used to be weird to me, until I noticed a pattern.
One cannot end one's own life legally. One cannot modify one's own brain
or body chemistry without formal permission from the state. One cannot
legally sell the sexual services of one's body to another private party
(except in narrow and, again, state-approved circumstances).
It boils down to the simple fact that the state considers the biological
bodies of its citizens to be its property. You don't own your body or
brain, as far as (as far as I know) any modern state-entity (of which
you might be a citizen) is concerned.
> Therefore, when I suggest the
> abolition of that entire class of crimes, I don't mean that every
> crime in the class should be likewise abolished.
>
This seems nonsensical to me. "When I suggest the abolition of an
entire class of crimes, I don't mean that every crime in the class should
be abolished." I don't understand.
> If we remove this obfuscation of offenses, so that all offenses are
> against an individual or group of individuals, it's clear that
> removing liability without the express consent of those who would
> otherwise be able to collect damages is simply legalization of
> aggression.
>
Huh, that's interesting. The problem that I see is that negotiating
limitations of liability on a per-relationship or, worse, situational
basis would make a market economy logistically prohibitive. There has
to be some body of consensus about what patterns liability limitations
generally fall into, so that one can pull the appropriate boilerplate
language on cue and move directly into a transaction. State and federal
contract and corporate law seems to be our current best stab at this.
Most suggestions that I hear libertarian-types make for any systems to
supplant this seem pretty laughable.
> Instead of having a separate requirement for carrying insurance, why not
> let the managers/owners of the business itself choose whether to carry
> such insurance? Removing some market feedback mechanism (liability for
> one's actions, in this case) always seems to require one or more other
> changes. Each of these changes distort the market in other areas in
> some (possibly small) way, which eventually look like "market problems"
> to politicians, who then campaign to fix them with more patches.
>
The subject is liability limitation, not liability removal. Right?
And it seems like a fairly simple and obvious fact that, while it would be
NICE if we lived in a universe where everyone had the luxury of sufficient
time, knowledge, and mental capacity to evaluate all of their risk in
any investment or other situation, we don't, and we're never going to.
In order for there to be any non-institutional investment on any wide
scale, there has to be some repository of trust, however cobbled together.
> If, instead, you just use a rule of "one is responsible for one's own
> actions", and rigorously enforce it, then exceptions which arise will
> be purely voluntary and can be contract-based. Liability cannot be
> limited by fiat, but it can be assumed by contract, which will often
> have the effect you want, above.
>
Again, I think this will lead to an established set of generally accepted
liability-limitation formulas, which is essentially what we have now.
When you see that my company's name is Brendan Coffey's Spiffy Con Job, LLC,
you know a great deal about what liability I (contractually) accept and refuse.
If you don't like LLCs, don't do business with one. I don't see that the
system you're (vaguely) describing would be functionally different.
> >Abolishing LLC would change little in the economy, except for some
> >names,
> >decreased reliance on stock for funding, increases in reliance on
> >credit,
> >and maybe increased use of commercial insurance by businesses. The
> >non-professional investor would lose, and consumers would not gain.
>
> It seems to me that a statement that little would change in the economy
> is equivalent to a statement that you can centrally plan this aspect of
> the economy, and by extension, all aspects which it touches. I'm very
> skeptical of this kind of statement, since I'm unaware of any clear
> examples of the success of economic central planning.
>
So, how do you feel that LLC is different from a subchapter S or C
corporation in its negative effect? Should incorporation in general
be abolished?
-Brendan
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