Human rights are natural, inherent, irreducible, and unalienable. They are born with us, live with us throughout our lives, and are a transcendent expression of our having been here. They embody and convey human dignity and connect us to each other, as allies and protectors.

Corporate rights are created by law, because corporations are created by law. Human beings, exercising their inherent, irreducible right to self-government, issue defined privileges to registered commercial entities, based on the idea that those entities, by practicing their craft in good faith, might provide goods and services for the benefit of those they serve and so the wider society.

The harm caused by major polluters is increasing, and is increasingly evident. That harm is now known to include:

• Widespread physical disease and premature death; 
• Preventable industrial global heating; 
• Disrpution of land-based and marine ecosystems; 
• Depletion of watersheds and agricultural productive capacity; 
• Catastrophic losses to public budgets and the macroeconomy; 
• Destruction of infrastructure, homes, and regional economies, through climate shocks; 
• Radical distortion of insurance markets and other markets; 
• Embedding of traceable price increases throughout the economy. 

For all of these layered, embedded, and compounding risks and costs, major polluters can be held legally liable. There is no legal premise on which polluters should enjoy any limitation of liability for these enormous, pervasive costs, and the First Amendment prohibits abridging the right to seek legal redress.

All businesses have social benefit responsibilities

The United States Constitution calls on Congress to support the advancement of science and “useful arts” by recognizing intellectual property protections, for a time. This is part of the Constitution’s commitment to “the general Welfare”, which is itself a manifestation of the commitment to establish and sustain a republic—a democratic system of self-government in which the instruments of power belong to the people.

To fully honor their founding legal commitments, licensed businesses must produce something of value to the public. For this, they earn revenues and retain profits, even while they benefit from generous tax breaks, to support the financing of their operations. For all of these reasons, limitation of liability is effectively contingent on operating as an institution with a public benefit purpose. 

We treat ‘B Corp’ certification as a niche status, pursued by do-gooder founders, and which carries a marketing benefit that might also include access to targeted subsidies. As a legal innovation, the B Corp certification is that. But the good faith doctrine effectively requires all businesses to operate in line with chartered values and common sense ethics.

The founding laws of the United States do not envision a future in which powerful elites exploit, harass, degrade, and get away with intentionally harming and killing Americans, or anyone else. 

“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” the Fifth Amendment assures us. That prohibtion is not circumscribed; it is boundless and covers all institutions of government, as well as all people and entities in the United States. It also suggests a national purpose—to support the protection of those rights for all people, everywhere.

This future we inhabit is meant to be one where exploitation is curtailed, constrained, and punished, and where political processes and private enterprise alike elevate the human rights and dignity of even the most powerless of people. That is the measure of success for a free republic and for all who exercise the right to free enterprise within it.

In service of human health & wellbeing

Data can work in service of human health and wellbeing. What would that information look like? This question is difficult to answer, because the number of people and institutions invovled in answering it, and the diversity of their perspectives and aims, is unwieldy.

So, we must start with principles: 

1. You have a right to know—whether you are consuming something that can harm you, whether you are degrading the health of Nature, or of your community or your country. 
2. That right can be served faithfully by businesses operating in good faith, telling the truth about their activities, and providing you with facts about their ingredients, methods, and value chains.
3. Digital technology makes it easy to attach labels to any product or service, detailing their ingredients, methods, and value chains. 
4. Government can reward the best actors, who serve this need intentionally, faithfully, and effectively, giving enhanced agency to their customers.
5. The business of gathering, parsing, synthesizing, and translating relevant data should be supported by public and private investment, to enhance value creation.

We can make an economy that works, that favors agency over dehumanization, justice over exploitation, and mutual thriving over impunity.