Home > Block, Huebert, Kinsella, limited laibility, rent-seeking > Block/Huebert/Kinsella revisit corporations, beg Qs of grant of limited liability towards persons involuntarily injured and resulting fight to influence state action

Block/Huebert/Kinsella revisit corporations, beg Qs of grant of limited liability towards persons involuntarily injured and resulting fight to influence state action

September 10th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

I left the following comment at a recent Mises Blog post by Stephan Kinsella, but the number of links included apparently triggered the spam filter and held up the comment.  According, I post it here, so I can re-comment with a cross-link here.

Stephan, we have extensively discussed this matter previously, focussing mainly on the point that Vincent Cook raises, namely, the consistency with libertarian principles of the state grant of limited liability as against parties who become unwilling “creditors” of the firm as a result of being injured by the actions of the firm.

You continue to dodge this point just as Block and Huebert have explicitly begged the question in their latest effort (emphasis added):

“As long as there is no fraud, as long as all those who deal with corporations know full well that in case of any dispute, they will only be able to sue for an amount up to the full capitalization of the corporation and not have access to the shareholders’ personal assets, there can be no problem with the libertarian legal code.”

It goes without saying that injured persons don`t choose ahead of time who will injure them, much less the whether the liability of their tortfeasors will be limited to corporate assets. [IOW, when it comes to limited liability corporations, there IS a fairly glaring problem with the libertarian legal code.]

Our previous discussions on the Mises Blog took place here and here

And an earlier related discussion on the Mises Blog was here:

I have commented extensively myself on the consequences of this grant – which I see as fuelling risky corporate behavior and a cycle of “rent-seeking” fights with private interests seeking to use the state as a check against corporations – in a number of blog posts, such as the following:

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/11/26/corporations-amp-the-state-some-criticisms-of-huebert-and-block-s-criticisms-of-long.aspx

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/03/when-will-tom-woods-and-other-quot-free-market-quot-intellectuals-have-second-thoughts-about-limited-liability.aspx

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/02/26/the-curse-of-limited-liability-wsj-com-executives-traders-of-big-financial-corporations-generate-risky-businesss-while-smaller-partnerships-are-much-more-risk-averse.aspx

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/10/16/fighting-over-the-wheel-of-government.aspx

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=limited

http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/pages/legal-resources-on-the-state-creation-of-limited-liability-for-shareholders.aspx

 

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