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  1. The attack on corporate personhood only make sense from the collectivist mindset, it is a collectivist critique. A collective is not merely a group of individuals. Where collectivism goes wrong as a theory is its reification of the group as a new entity whose welfare is considered as separate, more real or more important than any individual comprising it. It is the hierarchical priority of the group over the individual that leads to poisonous and destructive consequences. In the collectivist imagination, some novel and foreign element comes into existence upon incorporation, something inhuman and wicked. This is every bit as stupid and superstitious as anything some tongue-speaking, snake-handling evangelical voodoo practitioner could ever say. A corporation is an instrument that makes it possible to conduct business without having to draw up contracts acknowledging each individual involved with the business. Whenever a corporation acts or speaks, it is still the action of one or more individuals. It is not possible to restrict a corporation's speech without restricting some individual's speech.
    1 point
  2. Groovenstein

    "Commerce V. Theft"

    Title was theirs, not mine. As with my other letters, I don't do these to be some great work of writing. I just like to get a strong statement of some basics out there to oppose the crap. ___ Some letters contain philosophical disasters of such epic proportions that my respect for the greatness of man inspires me to spend some of my time challenging them. Such a letter appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star recently. That letter was “Stop U-Stop,” in which John Baldus opposed the building of a U-Stop/McDonald’s at 21st and K streets. According to Baldus, it is immoral to start a business. It is immoral to invest time and money providing products and services people want at a price they are willing to pay. It is immoral to value one’s time and effort, and thus to want to be paid for the value one provides to others. To Baldus and those agreeing with him, I ask: What, then, is moral? One possibility, Baldus implies, is the Antelope Valley Redevelopment Plan. Part of that plan is the theft of desired property when negotiations fail. If the property owners do not wish to sell their lands, the government simply readies its guns and takes them. By what standard does this morality condemn trade while condoning theft? Were it not for the wealth that people behind businesses like U-Stop create, there would be nothing to steal. Production is the means by which we thrive. The people with the courage and ingenuity to produce should be praised, not condemned. Matthew Stein, Lincoln
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