> I bought that share came with a certain expectation of control

That control is only within the limits on the corporation itself, all within the context of the entire legal system that gives concepts like "corporation" and "shareholder" meaning.

> Would you support a bill forcing owners of large houses to set aside some of their space for the homeless?

I'll see your thought experiment and raise you one. Does share ownership entitle you to direct that the company do something illegal, or immoral? Or that any number of shareholders be able to do so? Of course not. Again, your control only applies within the limits on the company itself.

> Would you give your squatter a vote

Voters and taxpayers are not squatters. They collectively constitute the government that grants corporations certain privileges - e.g. the right to own property or bring lawsuits, even to participate in the political process since Citizens United, all under the shield of limited liability and legal accountability (a corporation can't be imprisoned). The state and its people should receive something in return for that. In the very same language of contracts that you're using, if there's not consideration on both sides then there's no contract.

Don't like the deal? Don't incorporate. Don't try to get that something for nothing. Be a sole proprietor, personally and directly liable for any ill the company does. Good luck. There's a reason others do take that sweet sweet bargain, and not because it's fair to all who are affected.

The corporate form is a special, ongoing, government granted privilege. You paid the issuer of that share, or a prior owner, for their interest, but part of the deal—the expectation you should have had—that it came with is that the associated privileges that go with the (essentially last place) claim on corporate assets at dissolution are subject to change by government.

Changes over time have made shareholders and management less accountable to the public interest generally as charter revocation for gross abuses has fallen into disuse, and have also shifted the balance between shareholders and management (who are, after all, employees.) Shifting the balance between shareholders and employees in a way which applies to the mass of employees rather than management as such is novel, perhaps (though labor law changes, while not specific to the corporate form of business, tend to do that, too), but isn't really different in any fundamental way from the kinds of changes to corporate power relations that have happened through legislative and judicial action throughout the whole period of existence of the corporate form.

Now, if you want to argue the specifics of this proposal, great, but arguing for an expectation-based entitlement for immutability of the privileges and power relations associated with corporate shareholding is, well, indefensible as a reasonable expectation.

> Would you support a bill forcing owners of large houses to set aside some of their space for the homeless? Would you give your squatter a vote equal to your own in matters of deciding how to arrange the furniture and paint the walls?

Quantity has a quality all its own. You can't analogize the massive scale of enormous wealth to a typical scale of a smallholding without making serious errors.

You're making those serious errors in your analogy.

If you're one of a club of billionaires whose large estates take up all the land, then yes, you should be forced to set aside space for the homeless.

Similarly, if you have massive control over the economy, you have no right to oligarchy. You need to move over and make way for democracy.

> If I bought a share in a company fair and square, I bought that share came with a certain expectation of control. That share is my property. Giving control to people who haven't bought control fair and square is a taking of my property, and as a general heuristic, we should be extremely skeptical of taking people's property for some kind of ostensible good.

Property rights aren't the highest holy, up on some sacred pedestal somewhere. They should only exist to the extent that they serve the public good.

>Would you support a bill forcing owners of large houses to set aside some of their space for the homeless?

I support the idea of taxing the rich to support the less fortunate so yes, I agree with the general idea behind your bizarrely worded scenario.

Slightly related, but when communists came to power in my Eastern-European country immediately after WW2 they nationalized most of the urban “big” houses and apartment-blocks. Most of the owners of those properties had to move out completely, but some of them still had the “opportunity” to still live inside a room of their now former property and the rest of the rooms were given as rentals to workers who had come mostly from the country-side. This situation lasted for 10-15 years until the regime built enough new apartment-blocks into which it moved those workers and their families.

We already tax corporations. Taxation isn't surrending ownership control. It's very different, just like a property tax that funds a homeless shelter is very different from forcing someone to live with a squatter.

"Taxation is theft" is a very common refrain because the government is taking "your property" in the form of currency.

> Would you support a bill forcing owners of large houses to set aside some of their space for the homeless?

I mean this is literally what property taxes are for!!! Sometimes ownership/control creates externalities that require removing some of that ownership/control for the benefit of society as a whole.

Now that you say it like this I couldn't be more against this bill. Property taxes are awful and illogical

> Property taxes are awful and illogical

So are sales taxes, and income taxes are even worse than that. Which of those do you prefer, and for what reason beyond selfishness? Or are you one of those people who believe all taxes are bad, which is tantamount to saying all government is bad?

Reasons: I don't like giving my money to people. I think I could support sales tax if I had to pick one.

> I bought that share came with a certain expectation of control

This may be zero, since some companies go public with non-voting shares. https://www.ft.com/content/9595e5c4-51db-11e7-bfb8-997009366...

Society has the right to change the rules on you. The system belongs to all of us.

"Society has the right to change the rules on you. The system belongs to all of us." is something the Bolshevik might have said to the Kulak as the latter was walking up the gallows.

That is not a very good argument, akin to " 'Salads are healthy' is something Hitler would say". And? Since when someone despicable uttering something invalidates what was said by contamination, taken so out of context?

My point is that arguing that "society has the right to change the rules" is not an argument that any particular rule change is a good idea. Many rule changes have been both brutal and catastrophic.

Sounds very close to ex post facto

> Sounds very close to ex post facto

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about. If a democracy can't repeal a law that's proven to be an error, you'll have quote a dysfunctional system.

Ex post facto (in the Constitution, at least) refers specifically passing a law making an action illegal and punishable after the fact. Actions can only be illegal according to the law in force at the time they were taken.

Yes. You are talking about taking people's property away with legal force because you don't like how they used it after they've agreed to buy it under different conditions.

Well, rent-control kind of works like this. You are forced to continue renting out your property to the renter at the price they've been renting it for.

And rent control has been working great, hasn't it?

Rent control is a repulsive manipulation of the market that strangles necessary growth in the housing stock. It privileges a few undeserving people who lucked into rent controlled apartments over the interest of society at large.

Except your concern for "the interest of society at large" was essentially zero just a few minutes earlier when talking about stocks.

There's no contradiction. My position is that society as a whole benefits when we allocate scarce resources to their most productive ends, and the system of ownership and profit optimization does just that. Adam Smith was right about the invisible hand.

I certainly think there is a contradiction. If you want to base your opinions on some grand theory that is on you. How to apply Adam Smith's theories in modern society is certainly up for debate, e.g:

https://aeon.co/essays/we-should-look-closely-at-what-adam-s...

This comment exemplifies a style of argumentation that's become very common. It doesn't address the central point. Instead, it reiterates the commentator's position while using FUD and misleading links to ideological blogs to create the false impression that well-established ideas are "up for debate". Climate deniers use the same schtick for the same reason.

The linked article is one of those tedious affairs that tries to deconstruct what Smith the man may have thought about contemporary mercantilist politics or something. It's not an indictment of Smith's ideas, which are timeless.

I am sick and tired of people today attempting to dismiss profound and influential ideas by pointing out that the people who formulated these ideas were complicated people.

Aren't the people prone to doing this supposed to believe in the "death of the author"?

You are the one using rhetoric like "taking of my property" and "repulsive manipulation", rhetorical questions, dictating that "there is no contradiction" and trying to bury the discussion by referring to larger theories and now even invoking climate deniers. If you don't add anything to the discussion then don't expect anything back.

If your resistance against something is motivated by a theory, then clearly what you are against exists in opposition to that theory. So by definition the theory, or at least its connection to what you are against, can't, or is very unlikely to, be well-established. At least not among the people acting against it. Which makes your argument faulty and the majority of this discussion meaningless.

I certainly think people have a greater expectation to control their living costs than they have to control companies. But that isn't even the issue.

The issue is that you say that stocks have an expectation of control regardless of justification. But then justify why there shouldn't be rent control with the same justification you were warning people against. You say your motivation for this is that, based on these theories, you agree with control over stocks, but not over rent. Which means that you are effectively saying that an expectation is only as good as its justification and not that an expectation shouldn't be affected by justifications. Leaving little practical argument left about why you can't move control away from stocks if there is a good enough justification.

Yeah, I'm never been a fan of rent control (and voted against San Mateo Measure Q), particularly its effects on market rates for newcomers.

However, recently I've been starting to realize that the market is already distorted by Prop 13, so perhaps rent control might simply even the playing field between renters and owners.

In my ideal world, Prop 13 wouldn't be a thing, and homeowners would be advocating for heavy housing development around them to keep property values low (and hence keep their tax bill from going up).