Important Note: I generally aim to write from a collective or personal perspective by using “I,”, “me”, “we,” or “one”, rather than directly addressing “you” the reader. However, in this particular case, I will use “you” to encourage thoughtful and responsible reflection and to help place “you” the reader within the scenario. Please understand that this is not intended to be directed at “you” or for “you” to hold this personally, but rather an invitation to consider the ideas presented in a mature and thoughtful manner.
Scenario for Consideration
Imagine waking up tomorrow and being treated, not as an individual with our accepted and standard personal liberties and rights, but as a “regulated entity” like companies are. You would need to consider most of the following, if not more, before doing anything each day.
You would need to consider…
- every decision you command.
- every dollar you spend.
- every promise you utter.
- every email you send.
- every phone call and voicemail you leave.
- every purchase you make.
- every donation you instantiate.
These would all be subject to new or different
- layers,
- laws,
- oversight,
- reporting,
- licensing,
- insurance,
- permits,
- enforcement,
- regulations,
- taxes,
- fees,
- stipulations,
- penalties,
- audits,
- statutes,
- and maybe most importantly scrutiny.
Essentially, imagine living your daily life under the same framework that governs companies and corporations do here in the USA.
At first glance, that might sound like a move toward fairness for some and for others it might induce panic. When you start unpacking what corporate regulations actually looks like, the idea becomes far more complex and a perhaps a bit unsettling. After all, why shouldn’t everyone play by the same rules no matter who, where, which, how, when, or what they are?
Constant Reporting Cycles
Companies don’t just exist, they report on nearly everything. Every quarter, they disclose financial performance and provide regulatory results. Every year, they produce details outlining some of the below items as well.
- Risks
- Strategies
- Governance
- Decisions
- Outlook
Now imagine if you had to do the same type of reporting and suddenly, privacy starts to feel like a luxury rather than a given right. You may have to do the following.
- Create a quarterly report explaining your spending habits
- Release a risk disclosure about your job stability or health
- Produce a public document outlining your five-year life strategy
Detailed Compliance Requirements
Corporations operate under strict compliance rules and guidelines. They must follow industry regulations, avoid conflicts of interest, and adhere to standards that often require entire teams or departments to manage and monitor.
Now picture if all of this applied to you too.
- Creating a new resume: That might require a detailed “audit by a governing board”
- Want to switch careers: That may require “approval” based on compliance criteria
- Planning a vacation: It must align with “resource allocation guidelines”
- Accepting a gift: You may need to disclose it to avoid potential “ethical violations”
- Moving to another home: That might require “zoning approval and environmental impact study or review” for an existing home
- Opening a personal bank account: That could trigger “enhanced due diligence and compliance verification”
- Lending money to a friend: You may need to file it under “regulated financial activity with reporting requirements”
- Posting on social media: It might be subject to “public disclosure standards and reputational risk review”
- Buying a car: That purchase could require “multi-agency reporting and tax compliance documentation”
- Volunteering your time: You may need to log hours under “formalized labor reporting and liability coverage”
- Hosting a gathering at your home: That could fall under “occupancy limits, safety regulations, and permit requirements”
- Changing your daily routine: It might require “operational justification and productivity impact analysis”
- Make a large jewelry or watch purchase: You may need to submit it for “budget approval and financial oversight review
- Helping a neighbor with a task: That could be classified as “uninsured work require additional liability disclosure”
- What to sell your used car: This could generate “taxable income reporting, title transfer compliance, and disclosure requirements subject to regulatory review”
With all of that put in place, your life would become less about choice and more about adherence. It would require additional education and licensing, which may never be achievable.
Persistent Monitoring and Audits
Businesses are audited regularly, both internally and externally. Their financials, books, decisions, and practices are scrutinized within those audits to ensure compliance and accuracy. If individuals, like you, were treated the same way, you would need to consider the following on each move.
- Your bank account could be “audited” quarterly or annually
- Your decisions reviewed for “efficiency and duty”
- Your habits analyzed for “performance optimization”
- Your purchases evaluated against predefined “budget compliance thresholds”
- Your time tracked for “personal productivity and utilization metrics”
- Your communications monitored for “policy alignment and reputational risk”
- Your relationships reviewed for “conflict-of-interest considerations”
- Your long-term plans assessed against “strategic alignment and risk exposure”
Where does accountability end and intrusion begin, if that all was in place for people just like companies? It raises an uncomfortable question when I think about that. What does it do for you?
Weight of Liability
Companies can be held liable for a wide range of issues and sometimes even unintended ones. They must anticipate risks and protect themselves legally and ethically against repercussions. Now imagine if you had to protect yourself from any of these below, as well.
- Being legally responsible for the ripple effects of your everyday actions
- Having to insure yourself against potential “personal liability events”
- Facing penalties not just for what you do, but for what you fail to anticipate the results being
- Being required to document your decisions in case of future legal review
- Maintaining detailed records of your behavior to demonstrate “due diligence”
- Facing liability for unintended consequences, even if no harm was foreseeable
- Being expected to proactively identify and mitigate personal “risk exposures”
- Securing legal protections for everyday interactions to reduce potential claims
- Undergo periodic “compliance reviews” to assess your adherence to evolving rules
- Needing to justify your actions through documented “decision-making processes”
Life would become a constant exercise in risk management demonstrating reasonableness, compliance, and hazard awareness in the event of review or dispute.
Structure Over Spontaneity
Corporate environments prioritize structure, predictability, and documentation. Improvisation is often discouraged unless it’s backed by a documented or formal process. For individuals, this could mean any number of the following to be intruded upon.
- Personal goals requiring formal “planning frameworks”
- Everyday decisions slowed by multi-step “approval and validation processes”
- Deviations from routine triggering “exception reporting and justification”
- Informal actions converted into “standard operating procedures”
- Personal records maintained to support “traceability and audit readiness”
- No spontaneous decisions without justification
- Every major choice documented and archived
- Creativity filtered through policy and procedures
In other words, the liberty endowed on us as a human could become really messy, unpredictable, and evolve as it shrinks dramatically.
What’s the Point?
This thought experiment isn’t about suggesting individuals should be regulated like corporations. Instead, it highlights a deeper truth of the frameworks we design for institutions that don’t translate cleanly to human life within the USA.
- Corporations exist to manage scale, risk, and accountability in complex systems.
- Individuals exist to live, adapt, explore, and grow.
Applying the same standards to both exposes a tension between control and liberty. Perhaps the real takeaway of this is when we think about fairness and accountability, we must also think about context.
Equality doesn’t always mean sameness!