Reply #389: Joint stock companies were government run companies... what do you mean?

[Localist]

Joint stock companies were private businesses that were chartered by the state, afforded exclusive privileges and limited liability, just like the way the world works now:

e.g. FORD, GM and Chrysler are chartered by the state, must maintain its corporate form per state standards, are given undue advantage over all other formsof business, and have exclusive privilege to exploit the vast majority of automotive intellectual property at the expense of the people.

It's just as Adam Smith said:

"Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company. It is upon this account that joint stock companies for foreign trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition against private adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an exclusive privilege, and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without an exclusive privilege they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an exclusive privilege they have both mismanaged and confined it. "

Sound familiar?

The only thing that our "modern" ( hah! *cry* ) state-chartered companies have going for them is that their vast wealth of intellectual property, afforded to them by their status as "persons", prevents independent entrepreneurs from ever entering into the market. The solution is and has alwabs been more freedom for individuals, less freedom for fascists: whether they are the kind who take us hostage via "legal fictions" or illegal firearms.