Human Stories

All ethical ends are human ends.

 Fictive Corpora

There is no such thing as a corporation. A corporation is merely a story about people that people tell themselves. It may be a useful story, it may help coordinate action, give people meaning, or work towards the common good, but it is merely a story, a ghost of the imagination.

Imagine a democratic society where corporations could vote. Democracy would instantly fall to whomever's imagination could form the most corporate stories (or, without any controls, to whomever could register the most companies).

Should anything be legal in the context of employment in a corporation which is not normally legal? If an individual would otherwise be charged for a crime, how does participating in a story which tells them to commit crimes make them any less guilty?

We all live out stories every day. Most of our fictions are not formalized -- a dream to become a manager, a goal to help people in need, or some religious journey towards self-improvement. These fictions are no different in kind from corporations.

 Conservation of Rights and Responsibilities

Responsibility and rights can be delegated in fictions, but they cannot be created or destroyed. If an employee is less liable for some action which they've committed, then their manager must be equivalently more liable. If an employee is granted some extra-ordinary right, such as the right to enforce laws, that right must come from some other persons who have delegated that right.

 The State

There is no such thing as the State. A State is merely a story people tell themselves.

It is the case that a monopoly of force seems like a particularly stable arrangement for society. Without a monopoly of force, coercion can easily run rampant, and political manuevering can easily become a standard, critical feature of everyday life.

So people can, and often do, delegate their rights to retribution to the State. The sole source of the State's legitimate authority are the rights delegated by the people.

 Tyrants

Imagine a despot who claims to represent the State. He claims that all citizens have given up their right to private property, delegating it to him, so that he legitimately owns everything in his country.

Such an occurrence may have been commonplace, a few thousand years ago. Warlord and bullies may have been the first to monopolize force, the first to demand submission. Without any delegation of rights or responsibility, a warlord and his minions would win against uncoordinated resistance.

Rights are a fiction too. Like a monopoly of force, they are a stable state of society, which protects governments from overstepping and making individuals into rebels. A free society would need no rebels, because there would be no imposition to rebel against.

 Majority ???

What if, in a city of one million people, there are not just one, but two such tyrants? What about three, or four, or a hundred, or a thousand? What about five hundred thousand? At what point can one person legitimately demand rights from another?

Might prevails, as a matter of natural law. Unmediated, this devolves into a martial conflict. Coalitions of individuals can gather together to transform this Lockean (Hobbesean?) state of nature into a civilization, where they delegate ... .

Individuals delegate their rights to the State, or else rights do not exist at all. A State which claims extraordinary rights for themselves is a state which does not recognize rights.