DRJ
Hedonist
A person-hood can be regulated differently if non-profit or profit. For example, foundations have other taxing (or even none) than "normal" economical person-hoods. The charade some rich people do is then to create a foundation (to save taxes) and let it exercise political goals they set, disguising it as "charity" or "research".
For example, in Germany, a very important publisher, who aquired TV-stations as well, and founded the Bertelsmann-Group - an aquivalent to Trump or Murdoch -
made up a "charity", the Bertelsmann-foundation whose goals are to present and educate the public in a neo-liberal manner, presenting their ideas in pseudo-"neutral" way, represented by "experts" in talkshows and editorials or even slightly ideologically tweaked "news" etc. They launched campaigns in the huge media outlets the group owns, covered by other big media corporations of the same political thinking (like the Axel Springer Group, owing "BILD" for example) and influenced the politics very strongly, presenting their "reforms" as the only viable option for the future. The campaigns started when the conservative gov was voted off in '98. Thereafter we had lesser regulation for hedgefonds, lesser corporate income tax, lesser taxes for the rich in general. Under an alleged social democratic gov! The influence of this foundation over the gov was enourmous and still is.
Can we accept these "foundations" to exist like that, saving the rich tax money by donating it to present their very own political goals instead of giving it to the community for wider solidarity? I think no! The social contract is undermined by that.
My point is, that if we even have the problems with fake-foundations, then what about the responsibilities of corporations in general? They even are serving their very own interests much broader, regarding lobbying, like writing the laws regarding themselves for the govs, etc.
Doing so, shall they actually be able to exercise political control but not have individual responsibility at all, like politicians do? I think lot of them would really act differently - of course they could set straw men for that, but would they be really that arrogantly and perky then? I guess it's something that should be tested at least. To keep the status quo doesn't help anybody, exept those who already have enough and don't give it away exept for high interest rates.
There should be a tax for money that isn't used. If you can't hold money but have to invest it or it will expire, lot more economical dynamic will be generated, giving even the little ones a real chance to close the gap to the big players; right now for the most people - as hard as they work - it's merely a fairy tale that every one can achieve anything any time - the big ones control that very tightly - socialism for the rich, that is - oligarchy for the rest.
