Accountable Capitalism and the Right to Own Oneself

Responsible Corporations or Pirates?

Elizabeth Warren introduced an act called:

The Accountable Capitalism Act — real citizenship for corporate persons

Vox Source:

Warren Accountable Capitalism Corporations

Matt introduces his article in Vox with “Elizabeth Warren has a plan to save capitalism.” and “She’s unveiling a bill to make corporate governance great again.” And the kewl thing is that Warren is drawing on the work of Scandinavian rights theorist Ernst Wiggforce and labor rights activists and theorists who were able to save Scandinavian Capitalism from itself.

This act seeks to address some of the concerns most of us have about corporate charters, their powers and immunities and the highly undemocratic institution. So this post follows My Post "The Right to Own Oneself" and addresses matters that relate to basic rights theory.

This act introduces some basic rights based articles into the economic dialogue. Matt Yglesias has been in a vigorous, and somewhat personal, debate with people who oppose the act, many of them distorting what Warren, Yglesias and other defenders are saying. I hadn't heard of the act until I saw an article shared on twitter making an ad hominem on Matt Yglesias. I really doubt the act will be passed given the privateering power of our financial capitalists and their Republican proxies, but the ideas have a lot of merit. Indeed her argument hinges on accepting the premise of the Gilded Age Supreme Court that extended 14th amendment protections of "personhood" to chartered corporations, and subsequent decisions that blurred the lines between artificial persons and natural persons. Essentially her argument hinges on the hypocrisy and inequity of extending the rights of personhood to corporations while exempting them from the duties and obligations any of the rest of us would be held to. If they are going to have personhood rights and privileges, they must do the duties. They need to accept:

“the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood.”

This is a stub. I wanted to start this, but to give it justice will take some more work. I'm going to go ahead and publish it in case anyone wants to read the links.

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17683022/elizabeth-warren-accountable-capitalism-corporations

The Right to Own Oneself:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/06/TheRightToOwnOnesSelf.html

http://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/case-based-on-ordinary-norms.pdf

https://cosmosandtaxis.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/ellerman_ct_vol5_iss3_4.pdf