Ribstein: Goldman Suit Is Political

The invaluable Larry Ribstein (who left his personal "Ideoblog" for the excellent group effort "Truth on the Market") offers the definitive first-take on the Goldman case from the perspective of a busiiness-law professor.  His key conclusion is that this suit was, in effect, the governmental version of a "strike suit," the term used when private individuals go after a corporation in the expectation that it will settle and they can pocket their gains without having to prove wrongdoing in court. But, as Ribstein writes: "Instead of attorneys’ fees, the SEC’s objective appears to have been purely political." And part of that political objective, as he notes, was to alter the obligations that a corporation has to others. Exactly. The purpose was to move the American economy away from the stand-alone individualism of the capitalist system to the paternalistic collectivism of a feaudalistic-seigneurial system.