1. Should we allow business to be conducted with limited liability entities? This arrangement obviously benefits investors, but does it harm society? If so, how? Many corporate scandals are caused by the separation of ownership from management. Investors own companies, but executives manage them. Investors are said to "vote with their feet", meaning that if an investor doesn't like what a company is doing, she sells her shares and takes her money elsewhere, rather than voting to change the conduct of the business. It is easier to pick up and move on than it is to get involved and organize change within a large company. The fact that publicly traded companies may be owned by hundreds of thousands of small investors with only a few shares of the company each means that most of those investors cannot practically participate in the management of the companies in which they invest. If limited liability was eliminated, investing in this manner would be extremely risky, as your personal assets would be at risk from the liabilities of each company you invested in. How might this change business ownership? What impact would this have on society?
2. Should we ever create "partnerships by estoppel"? Why or why not?