That was very well expressed. The writing itself could improve, but the sentiments are very well put.

An interesting and fun read. Thanks for linking to it.

In the '80s, I did an LBO (leveraged buy-out) of a machinery business, with 3 other partners. After the marathon 21 hour closing meeting, on a Thursday, I was the first one of the partners to make it in Friday. I'd just put down my briefcase, when my phone lit up with a call from Bearsdy, our shop floor manager.

"We've got a truck delivery of castings. What's our new freight account number?" asked Bearsdy. I had no idea. The trucker wouldn't drop freight unless he had a valid freight clearing account number, or cash on the barrel head, sufficient for his charges. So I had the pleasure of walking out on the shop floor, across to the loading dock, and fishing through my wallet for $81.90, the amount of the freight bill. For which, I got a receipt in the form of a stamped bill of lading, and 432 pounds of grey iron castings from a foundry we used 30 miles away.

And the respect of my former colleagues, who were now my employees, as a guy who'd still be in early, and pay the freight, out of his own pocket, literally, if it came to that. I walked out of my office a guy with a problem on the loading dock, but I walked back The Boss, in ways I couldn't have scripted in a Hollywood movie scene, in a 15 minute chunk of script. You can't get a better education in business responsibility than I got that morning. I, too, wish more people took some personal responsibility for what they do for a living, but the very nature of corporations is to shield people from their responsibilities. So long as corporations are the necessity for capital markets that they are, and are given the legal status of "persons" they are granted now, we've enshrined the principle of "limited liability" in ways that chip away at the very foundation of social morality.

Personally, I think the solution may be to stop treating corporations as persons. Corporations are not persons, and should have no "rights." If that legal fiction could be kicked away, without spilling the house of cards that are the capital markets of the world, some sense of sanity in corporate governance could be expected. But as long as more and more of the world's products and services are provided by unnatural "persons" whose affairs are managed and directed by indeminified directors and management for the good of dis-interested and even ignorant stockholders, I doubt you'll see much change. Sarbanes-Oxley? Hah! Hasn't even put a dent in the rapacious behavior of corporate executives, although it has been a further hellacious multiplier in the CEO's salary race.

Wendell, I paid into Equitable Life for many, many years, into a plan which, whilst it didn't provide a guaranteed annuity (they'd stopped selling those plans several years before I joined) was destined to provide me with a good pension under its 'with profits' plan. Equitable Life was reputed to be the best private pension company in the UK.

But when the company told policyholders who had plans which did guarantee an income that it couldn't pay what they were expecting, they were taken to court by the policyholders. The company lost at first, then won on appeal, but the appeal was finally overturned by the House of Lords. So the cost of paying for the case and paying out the guaranteed income to the plan holders who had those policies had to be borne by those of us with the 'with-profit' plans where our income was not guaranteed.

That's why I'll probably have to work until I'm 70.

People will do things in the name of shareholders that they wouldn't do if they "owned" the company. Just look at the corporate retail stores that have made their cashiers into machines determined to shake every last penny out of you before you leave the store (do you have the protection plan? the credit card? the magazine subscription?).

As an aside, I've been getting into Godin's blog lately, and kind of view him the same as you. While I disagree with him often, he does think interesting thoughts.