[giggles_giggles]

This is quite a claim, but it's too vague for me to research independently. Where would I even start in exploring the "enormous body of law" that "incentivizes a top-down corporate business structure?" I am not asking rhetorically -- this is news to me and I'd like to know the details.

Of course, co-ops aren't common in the US, but they do exist (like REI) so I'm just curious about the details of this criticism of the legal landscape in the US but without further information am unable to research the claim.

[emiliobumachar]

Arguably that's exactly the problem. There's so much law applying to farming that you'd need a sizable legal department to know it all. That favors centralization.

[Nasrudith]

That applies to every field as corner cases are covered. Restricting it to what is actually relevant to the domain is sufficent to "consultation with relevant country lawyer" as opposed to entire law firms.