The EU Wants To Pierce The Corporate Veil

No, this is more than just screwing over Elon Musk

This won’t, but should, have everyone screaming and running for the hills. Preferably carrying lots of .50 ammo to fire back at those pursuing. Large scale economic activity simply is not possible if this goes through:

Musk’s Empire Risks Being Targeted by EU for Potential X Fines

Commission may base fine on revenue from Musk’s ventures

Now, put aside the true - and also vital - bits about civil liberty and the impertinence of civil servants paid with our tax money deciding what we may, or may not, see or hear about online. Clearly, obviously, the correct reaction is fuck ‘em and their horses. Given that many of them are French that would be the correct reaction anyway.

But now, this, now this is even more important than that. We can deal with free speech by the judicious use of lampposts. This is worse:

The European Union has warned X that it may calculate fines against the social-media platform by including revenue from Elon Musk’s other businesses, including Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Neuralink Corp., an approach that would significantly increase the potential penalties for violating content moderation rules.

Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, the bloc can slap online platforms with fines of as much as 6% of their yearly global revenue for failing to tackle illegal content and disinformation or follow transparency rules.

In English law that’s known as “piercing the corporate veil”. It’s also something we don’t do. Because that corporate veil is the very thing, the only thing, that makes large scale economic activity possible.

It has actually been said - and not just by me - that the invention of the limited company is the third grand invention of all time. Agriculture, the scientific method, the limited company.

Before the limited co everything was done through partnerships. Every individual involved in the ownership of something was liable for all of the debts of that thing. Which, when you’ve got 5 or 10 blokes trading isn’t that bad an incentive upon them to be honest.

Now think of large scale activity. We want a blast furnace - plenty of folk say Britain should have one after all. £3 to £5 billion these days. OK. No one’s got that much. So, we need to mobilise the savings of many thousands of people to go build it. But without limited liability that means all of those thousands are liable for all the debts - off into the future - of that blast furnace.

“Invest £500 in the new, new British Steel. And if we fuck up then in 10 years’ time they’ll come and take your house.”

Err, yes.

Large scale economic activity depends upon being able to separate the debts of one specific activity from the general economic life of all its backers. If this is not true then no one will invest in large scale economic activity. Therefore we won’t have large scale economic activity. Which would, you know, be bad.

Limited liability, that corporate veil which we do not pierce. The very bedrock, the only thing which makes it even possible, of large scale mobilisation of savings and thus of large scale economic activity.

The European Commission contains the sort of tossers who would throw away the whole and entire basis of our current civilisation in order to pursue one individual who says hurty things about them.

We’re back to free speech and lampposts, aren’t we?

Jesu C on his pogo stick, how did we allow the cretins to take control of an entire continent?