The for-profit, private-benefit, limited-liability corporation is big money’s favored institution for aggregating financial power to control the economy and the political system. A corporation is an artificial legal entity created by a government through the act of issuing a charter. In the case of publicly traded or privately held for-profit corporations, under current law, the charter generally grants the holder the privilege of aggregating unlimited financial resources under unified direction to maximize financial return for the pure private-benefit of its owners. This is the pure private-benefit corporation.

Unlimited aggregation of financial assets by a private benefit corporation accountable only to absentee owners is an invitation to abuse.  As a general rule, the greater the corporation's size, the greater its financial, market, and political power, the greater its ability to insulate itself from market forces to engage in anti-competitive practices that threaten the rights and interest of others, the greater the need for intrusive public oversight to prevent abuse, and the greater its ability to thwart such oversight.



Public share markets commodify corporate shares, depersonalize the relationship between the corporation and its owners, and encourage short-term speculation over enduring commitment. The perceived legal requirement to manage the corporation in the exclusive short-term financial interest of its shareholders, suppresses the innate human sense of moral responsibility and feeds an individualistic, immoral culture within the corporation and beyond to the society in which it operates.