Many people criticize the company, the corporate fiction, the business entity because it insulates people from liability and is motivated only by profit. Others complain about corporate welfare. Defenders say that subsidies are an economic necessity and the insulation from liability encourages people to invest in businesses that they would not invest in if they retained liability. Where do you come out?
Some of each. The “limited liability corporation” has been sort of “morally suspect” ever since its invention (anyone here seen or read the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Utopia, Ltd.?) because it was seen as a way for the company’s owners to evade responsibility for wrongdoing or neglect. On the other hand, there seems to be no doubt that the major commercial enterprises of the industrialized world wouldn’t have been possible without such an instrument.
My personal take: Limited liability corporations are on the whole necessary and good for modern economies. However, their rights as “legal persons” as interpreted in the US are somewhat too broad, and their charters ought not to be regarded in practice as irrevocable.
There are three ways to get someone to do something: Use the threat of violence to force them to do it, appeal to their charitiable instincts to get them to do it for nothing, or pay them to do it. For most types of business, profit is the only motivation realistically available.
There are many government programs might be considered ‘corporate welfare’. Some are defensible, many more are not.
Corporations limit liability, but they do not completely insulate people from it. On balance, this is probably a good thing.