The truth is that corporations in the U.S. and other countries have always been quasi-public entities chartered for public purposes. You would never know this from corporate propaganda that treats giant, multinational corporations as though they were simply giant versions of sole proprietorships or partnerships. But history and law alike make it clear that today's large corporations, like automobile manufacturers, are much more like spun-off government agencies than like large-scale lemonade stands.This is a fundamental mythology that comprises the metallurgical alloy most commonly found in the psychological chains of wage slavery: the idea that The Lemonade Stand is a realistic analogy for how an economy works, much less, how it should work.
Drive down any small main street in America and you'll find the vast majority of non-Big-Box enterprises as nothing more than propped-up facades.
For example, there is no way that 5 bookstores can survive in Half Moon Bay, California. We know this to be true, because we explored purchasing one of the most historically well known stores. That whole "market niche" is a complete facade in that 40 mile radius region. Multiply by tens of thousands of similar regions and you get the truth of the post-industrial-capitalism economy.
A brick-n-mortar storefront that sells only Futons? Are you kidding me? Or BBQ Grills?
These are all naive and misconstrued -- even when oh-so-sincerely well meaning -- derivations of The Lemonade Stand; each and every one doomed to the exact same fate, as predictably as the sun will rise tomorrow.
We have to Free Our Minds from the shackles of the Industrial Era psychology that worked for THAT era, but which is hobbling us from moving forward.
As we've expressed and implied numerous times, Corporate Charter Reform is the only viable path forward. Charters can be for specific purpose and embody specific, essential, sustainable values such as compensation ratios, vs hard salary caps.
Compensation Ratios ensure a free, highly competitive, Even Playing Field that also provides an economic breaker circuit to prevent destructive, pathological hoarding. Dividends can never do that. If they could, they would have long before now.
... the power to charter corporations for the purposes we choose and in the forms we prefer will always be a power we wield as a sovereign people. We the people should think about using our power.
