I feel like you are changing the goal posts. I explicitly said that any group isn't above the law. So I'm not exempting fraudulent behavior by any means. Nor did I say that liberty required limited liability. I've tried to suggest that my thoughts are about all sorts of groups, not just limited liability corporations.
What I was pushing back at was your suggestion that a corporation must "benefit society". That particular phrasing is completely open ended in my mind suggesting way too much power to be wielded if you aren't "benefiting society". Perhaps that isn't what you intended but IMHO appeals to "improving society", "helping the children", "the greater good" in the abstract are either power grabs or empty phrases. The specifics mater.
"All sorts of groups"? Only a very few sort of groups need special legal imprimatur to exist. And if you want to be granted special and extraordinary treatment by a community, why would that community not expect you to not be an asshole about it? If you don't want to uphold your end of that bargain there's always the general partnership. It confers no special legal privileges, it's purely contractual, but it's actually a "group of people" rather than A Fictitious Person Created To Avoid Liability. In my experience conflating these is never, never, done for good reasons, so I'd certainly like to hear yours. Maybe it'll be the exception, so lay it on me.
Here's a concrete example of what's actually a power grab: the Dole company literally-not-figuratively knocking over the Hawaiian monarchy and the subsequent creation of the "Republic of Hawaii" as a Dole-owned, Dole-operated state. Why is that not a "power grab" about which you get up in arms? Why is it that it's a "power grab" to say "hey you have a duty to not do that kind of shit"?
What you are categorizing as a "power grab" is a refusal to accept the status quo as legitimate just because it happens to be where we're at right now. Why is it that that advocacy, the use of the state to control its creations, is the "power grab" here--and not the accumulation of that power in the first place?
Or maybe I just got tired of trying to explain myself.
You keep changing the topic and I keep trying to come back to my observation that requiring a corporation to "benefit society" is not actually a thing in law and would be a bad idea in any case.
If your definition of "benefit society" just means "doesn't break laws". Then I would agree with you but there really isn't any need for such indirection and expansive language about "benefiting society" in that case.
So I gathered that you were suggesting that there is some administrative hoop that a corporation must jump through to convince you that they are "benefiting society". But that language is hopelessly broad and just begging to be abused by anyone in power who doesn't like what a disfavored group is doing (even when they aren't breaking any laws).
I bet there are a lot of people who think that Fox News isn't "benefiting society" and I'll bet there are also a lot of people who think that CNN or MSNBC aren't benefiting society. Are you telling me that the majority opinion should hold here and organizations disfavored by the majority can be legislated out of existence because they don't "benefit society"?
What I was pushing back at was your suggestion that a corporation must "benefit society". That particular phrasing is completely open ended in my mind suggesting way too much power to be wielded if you aren't "benefiting society". Perhaps that isn't what you intended but IMHO appeals to "improving society", "helping the children", "the greater good" in the abstract are either power grabs or empty phrases. The specifics mater.