Thursday, April 1, 2010
Wonderful post about corporations.
Saw the link on Free Exchange originally, this is one of the most interesting tidbits I've read about the development of corporations in America. I've long found it strange that so many advocates of free enterprise, personal liberty, and concentrations of power don't seem to reflect on the authoritarian structure of most US corporations. This puts things in a historical perspective and shows that at one time people were concerned about the concentration of power that can go with incorporation. This also struck me as particularly relevant since I've been reading Road to Serfdom which so far seems to reflect a lot on early writings about liberty but seems to be obsessively focused on liberty of man vs. state and to relatively ignore the liberty of man vs. man. This wasn't always the case. More historians should weigh in more often on the economic development of the US. Though I'm certainly not the first to say this.
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Dang, this is a great first post to read here. You probably know by now I consider individuals the smallest units of tyranny. I'm going to have to dig into the four volumes of Mises sitting on my shelf.
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Glad you liked it. I'm almost done with Road to Serfdom and will have my review up tomorrow which will probably continue with some observations along these lines.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to let me know how your reading of Mises goes, four volumes sounds like quite a bit.
I read the introduction already. The introduction was quite a bit.
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