I'm going to guess you're not from Europe based on that definition?

The EU constrains companies to the benefit of individuals. It's not stopping people from hurting themselves, it's stopping them from being hurt by companies who have phenomenal power over us, more power in some ways than states themselves have.

There are over 30,000 [1] paid lobbyists in Brussels, and you think "the EU constrains companies to the benefit of individuals". And these latest outrageous copyright and link proposals are widely regarded to be for the benefit of certain German media magnates.

Whatever criticism the EU attracts for its spending, the PR budget looks to be pretty good value. I'm really baffled by some of these perspectives.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/lobbyists-euro...

The EU actually has extensive law about lobbying.[1] It actually tries to be transparant in regards to how lobbying happens and what kind of lobbying happens.

Also, your 30K figure also includes lobbyists from civil rights groups and other NGO's. Not just purely companies.

Lobbying happens, it is how people influence politics. Better to be transparant and open about it them to hide it.

[1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2015/57280...

Well take the Working Time Directive as an example; relative to my own government in the UK, the EU certainly appear to do more for the demos (with the possible exception of the current copyright directive; which I've not read the draft legislation on yet).

Relative to the US, yes it does

The freedom to conduct business is one of the core freedoms that Americans value. When Americans talk about freedom, they are including the freedom to form a business and create whatever business arrangements you want.

To American values, restrictions on how you do business are as infringing as restrictions on individual rights.

This is an excellent point.

Along that same line of thinking, I think another historical American value/attitude is that a business is a person. More precisely, businesses only exist because individual people decide to take risks with their lives in the pursuit of whatever values they hold. Since they hold the risk privately, they get to hold the rewards privately.

That many people who take such risks value financial profit may be a concern to some, but is a non-concern to society as long as the marketplace is free of coercion.

Yep, one of our fundamental rights is the 'freedom of association', which the Supreme Court has ruled is protected by the first amendment. You are free to join together with others to pursue any lawful interest, and that includes commercial interests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

This proposed copyright law is about as far from benefitting individuals instead of companies as you can get.