A response to the (American) origin of anti-trust sentiment
Original post on StackExchange:
Why were businesses operating as trusts at one point, and why did the practice fall out of favor?
I respectfully take issue with the previous answers. The respondents not harkening back to the origin of trusts are simply not venturing far enough backward in time to ascertain an appropriate grasp of the concept of trust. What is unique about a trust comes from its origin: the leaving behind a Property of some kind for extended periods; to go venture or war afar, for example, left owners with a question as to ‘management’ of their Property. It was entrusted —essentially, wholly— to a trustee, in whom trust was conveyed entirely. This person had to be a person. A corporation (in the modern sense) is an artificial body (corpus)—the opposite of a natural person. This means a trust, which requires the trustee to be a natural person, is (and here’s the crux of the legal argument and precedent) an action of trust between two natural persons, and as such is governed by Common Law— ‘in Equity (non-financial justice) amongst persons’; whereas corporations (artificial bodies, comprised of multiple people who effectively cloak themselves with such a body and its liability in lieu of their own) are governed by Commercial Law— ‘in Law (financialized justice) amongst artificial bodies (aka. corporations).
For a trust structure to be used to mask personal (human, subject to common law) liability, whereas trustees are personally responsible (‘absolute principles’), is a misuse of trust (not ‘a trust’ as a noun, but ‘trust’ as a verb, an action between natural persons subject to common and natural law) itself; corporate law applies to these artificialized corpuses (groups of persons with artificial shields esculping them from personal liability and responsibility). Thus the trusts were ‘busted’ due to a false use of the structures themselves—they were indeed operating as corporations, which, again, are essentially the opposite of —or are specifically perversions of in this case— the very nature of trusts.
A note on taxation of trusts: trusts may accumulate property, and with proper provisions in the trust-forming documents themselves, ‘hold’ and administer such properties for the benefit of a beneficiary, and, importantly, only disperse taxable incomes to such beneficiaries per terms defined in the trust; whereas corporations are franchises of the (a) State, and are, as such, licensees of the State, with licenses to operate, granted (as a trustor grants property in a trust for the benefit of beneficiaries). That is, corporations, granted by the state are essentially property —or hold property— of the state, and only license their operators to operate and profit. Cf. Franchise & Excise tax. These are the base of state revenues, which are the primary reason (monetizing human labor) that states can grow (and have grown, monstrously)—they effectively own all corporations. Thus, state Treasuries, payable on the promise, that is, the promisory note, of the state, commonly called a Treasury Bond, are selling the bonded human labor, through artificial corporations (its citizens) which they franchise into existence and have the right to tax; that is, states can issue “soverign debt” and guarantee it, because their citizens, otherwise soverign themselves, are bonded (bound…as you might say slaves are ‘bound’) corporations which they can provably tax…or imprison and cause to labor for free. Yikes.
Trusts though, are [comprised of] trust (itself) between natural persons, and as such —as long as those persons do not act in ‘corporation’— are, arguably, not directly taxable entities. [don’t get excited—their proceeds, when distributed to natural persons acting as strawmen of themselves (which you do if you use a SSN or birth certificate) are taxable].
The trusts of big business were such perversions between human relations in name (‘trust’), but artificial relations in practice (corpuses).
Humans cannot by natural or common law be property of the state; as you use a SSN though, which, conveniently, without one you cannot store USD, you act as an incorporated corporation of your own, incorporated into the corporation (not the Country or Nation of) THE UNITED STATES (capitals intentional), and hence, act as taxable property, or temporary directors or agents of property, of said corporation. You allow yourself to be governed by commercial law of a corporation rather than natural and common law of humans. Hence, you pay tax—you’re a corporation after all. If you must register; a register being a list, you are on the king’s list, and thus, effectively his taxable subject—and you are subject to tax thereby.
Etymological source: regis, regus, rei, king: https://app.etymologyexplorer.com/descendant-nodes/Latin/regis
US as Corporation source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/is-the-us-government-a-corporation-the-corporate-origins-of-modern-constitutionalism/E8E2611FE9E9A205924F194BABBF4187
For some of this, by reference, see Express Trusts under the Common Law, Alfred D. Chandler
Further, with whose money do we transact, and what is its motto?: “In God we Trust”? Is that a simple remnant of a theistic founding myth? No. It cannot be. The “God or Nature’s God” harkened to thoroughly in the Declaration of Independents of The(se) United States is a reference, clearly, to Spinoza, whose natural Deism thoroughly permeated the founders’ thoughts not only in regards to religious freedom and freedom from it, but in regards to the superordinate role of the sacrality of consciousness in human beings and its intrinsic demand for freedom from persecution, the prerequisite demand by the Logos upon each of its participants. What has any of this to do with the money? Money represents conscious payments (cf. Kataboles) of attention. Money is the material re-presentation of value derived from human labor; whereas labor is the application of the consciousness inherent in agential individuals—those who act upon the world and who must be free to do so. That is, individuals must be free to pursue life liberty and happiness, and if left alone to do so, will labor toward these ideals. If a nation is to go well, it must be founded upon natural law—that is, “Nature’s god” whose natural creatures (creations, whether by fiat or evolution) possess this ability, orientation, and intrinsic need to labor for their continued existence, which they do in light of their perception of time, the future. That man sees the future begets his orientation toward it—to labor, save, invest, and divest according to his conscience—his mind’s function which combats ambivalence with relationary logic, science.