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Post by robeiae on Aug 31, 2017 8:45:48 GMT -5
Well, I think it's fair to take issue with how the government has enabled the current state of affairs, how it continues to carve out special rules and the like for certain corporate interests, often to the detriment of open competition. At the same time, the government has also played a real part in the breaking up of monopolies, in freeing up some industries to allow actual competition.
Of course, competition is not automatically a good thing, is it? So whether or not the government's actions--in one direction or another--represent a good thing is not always absolutely clear.
So I agree with you: regulations are necessary. The issues of which ones and how many are debatable.
That said, I do side with Don on the crony capitalist stuff, insofar as I think it ridiculously apparent how many large corporations get special treatment from the government as a matter of course, from "too big to fail" to special rights in a market sector to laws designed to protect corporations at the expense of individual citizens. People typically wave such things away with a "well, that's just the way it is," and I think that's foolish.
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Post by Don on Aug 31, 2017 9:50:12 GMT -5
The East India Company was government-chartered, with government-granted privileges and fielded its own government-approved army. Yet in spite of all these government-granted privileges, it still had recurring problems with finances.
Sounds like today's modern corporations, not something that grew Organically from offers and acceptance in the marketplace.
The East India Company is a fine example of the mercantilism/crony crapitolism I've been pointing out.
As for "Don never explains," I have done so repeatedly, most recently just above.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 31, 2017 11:01:19 GMT -5
You've explained what your model would be. You haven't explained how it would actually work. A "night watchman" state, in order to be able to seek restoration to victims of force or fraud, would have to be independent of those interests, with enough safeguards to prevent those very rich and powerful interests from simply subverting it. (Otherwise, why is the "night watchman" going to act in favor of Joe Citizen over Moneybags Company? Sense of duty? Incorruptibility?) In order to make it that powerful and independent, it would have to have some real teeth. Giving the government enough teeth to actually enforce its regulations, however few they may be, is something you guys always oppose. And once it has those teeth, the government, as you are always quick to point out, will like any other entity seek to expand its own power and influence.
Without those teeth, nothing stops the East India Company from becoming indistinguishable from the government, until the government actually has to step in and replace it, as happened historically.
So your "explanations" are no more meaningful or specific than "Everyone should stop doing bad things and then Mayberry will only need one sheriff."
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Post by Don on Aug 31, 2017 14:32:08 GMT -5
You've explained what your model would be. You haven't explained how it would actually work. A "night watchman" state, in order to be able to seek restoration to victims of force or fraud, would have to be independent of those interests, with enough safeguards to prevent those very rich and powerful interests from simply subverting it. (Otherwise, why is the "night watchman" going to act in favor of Joe Citizen over Moneybags Company? Sense of duty? Incorruptibility?) In order to make it that powerful and independent, it would have to have some real teeth. Giving the government enough teeth to actually enforce its regulations, however few they may be, is something you guys always oppose. And once it has those teeth, the government, as you are always quick to point out, will like any other entity seek to expand its own power and influence. Without those teeth, nothing stops the East India Company from becoming indistinguishable from the government, until the government actually has to step in and replace it, as happened historically. So your "explanations" are no more meaningful or specific than "Everyone should stop doing bad things and then Mayberry will only need one sheriff." A "night watchman" state would, of necessity, have some of the same drawbacks we suffer today, tending toward subversion by the rich and powerful. It would also possess the monopoly on the initiation of force that all governments claim. Both of these capabilities need to be guarded against, far more effectively than they are today. However, it would also lack much of the power that today's federal government claims. Regulatory structures define both the future and the rate of advancement of the human condition. The more paths to the future that are blocked to protect the status quo, the poorer our future becomes. The more centralized the decision-making, the less room there is for innovation, and innovation is the path to the future. A "night watchman" state limited to protecting persons and property would lack the power to force the future to conform to the wishes of those who make the biggest donations to political campaigns. It would lack the power to grant privileges to certain companies to the detriment of others, and the power to pay for those privileges at the expense of those who would otherwise be unwilling to do so. Limiting the legally-valid uses of coercion against peaceful individuals is always a good thing, IMO. YMMV.
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Post by Don on Aug 31, 2017 14:59:18 GMT -5
Well, I think it's fair to take issue with how the government has enabled the current state of affairs, how it continues to carve out special rules and the like for certain corporate interests, often to the detriment of open competition. At the same time, the government has also played a real part in the breaking up of monopolies, in freeing up some industries to allow actual competition. Of course, competition is not automatically a good thing, is it? So whether or not the government's actions--in one direction or another--represent a good thing is not always absolutely clear. So I agree with you: regulations are necessary. The issues of which ones and how many are debatable. That said, I do side with Don on the crony capitalist stuff, insofar as I think it ridiculously apparent how many large corporations get special treatment from the government as a matter of course, from "too big to fail" to special rights in a market sector to laws designed to protect corporations at the expense of individual citizens. People typically wave such things away with a "well, that's just the way it is," and I think that's foolish. This ties into the "history is important " point, too. Ever wonder why we eat fragile, disease-prone Asian steaks instead of hardy American ones? That's a massive negative economic and environmental impact that continues to this day, and one that could not have occurred under a night watchman state, being economically unviable absent massive subsidies and regulatory capture. For a more modern example, look at HFCS. There are myriad such disasters that litter history.
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Post by Christine on Aug 31, 2017 19:50:10 GMT -5
This is what matters. This is what is relevant. Can you really go back farther than 70 years to explain why Google has the lion's share of the market? Did Google get special privileges? If so, please explain. Irrelevant, imo. If Don is saying mega-corporations exist as they exist today because the government granted them special privileges and you're saying that it's simply a consequence of competition and the free market, I don't see how it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant, imo, in kind of the same way that since Arabic people invented algebra, we should blame them for poor test scores in math by today's students. Pointing to the origin of a thing doesn't mean the blame for the present shortcomings of the thing lies therein. The concept of a corporation is not, in and of itself, an evil notion. People will always tend to group resources together for profit ventures. This is true of general partnerships, for example, which have no legal status and no limited liability. This would be true of any large group of people pooling resources together to undertake a venture. These days, ventures are much larger and the investor pool is much larger. The idea that corporations are Teh Evul because some government a few centuries ago sanctioned the idea of allowing these groups to exist--as opposed to disallowing them--is weak. These groups would have developed anyway; they would exist, regardless. I submit that these ginormous enterprises would have evolved the way they did, because of technology and globalization, regardless of what actions governments did or did not take. But okay, Don mentioned the sheer awfulness of the concept of limited liability, granted by government, because one cannot sue an owner personally (usually) in excess of the assets of the corporation or other limited liability entity. That's a fair point, but I also view limited liability as a very pro-free market concept. Why shouldn't people be able to invest in a venture without losing more than what they invested? Should they, by investing in a venture they see as promising, not only risk their investment but also their homes, their personal savings, for venture that goes south? If the rule is you invest $1,000, or $10,000 in a business you think will succeed, but you could lose your house, your savings, the clothes off your back in the case that it doesn't... yeah, sorry, but that would stifle a helluva lot of investment. If Don's position is anti-investment, then fine. Probably no one would invest in anything, and that would be Don's free market, which would be nil. Very few people are going to risk everything for a possibility, even a good possibility, of a return on investment. Apologies for quoting the same post twice, but I was just thinking more about this and my question is: what do you suppose would have emerged--what would our modern-day commerce look like--had government not engaged in mercantilism, or given special privileges to certain entities, centuries ago? Do you honestly think that, absent "government" of any kind, that the free market would be unadulterated by greed, immune to the tendency of the the wealthy to amass ever more wealth? Would there be no "mega-entities," of whatever form, cornering large segments of the market today, if it weren't for whatever role governments played a hundred or more years ago? Well, the first question is impossible to answer, I think. Such actions were critical to the course of history, from the settlement of the New World (and the manner it was settled), to the Opium Wars and all that followed in China. The second question is easy to answer: no, I don't think that at all. I'm not Don. I'm not blaming the government for the existence of corporations, I'm explaining that existence. As to the third question, it's pretty much the same as the first, but it is important to note that the role that government has played in the evolution of corporations started at the beginning and has continued along the way. It was never a one-and-done type of thing. As to non-corporations (or non-traditional corporations) cornering market shares, here's an interesting thing to think about: the Catholic Church, where it prospered and where it didn't, in comparison to the creation and growth of corporations. I appreciate that you're not Don. I don't think it's impossible to answer, or at least speculate, on what the potential outcomes might have been, absent government. Because, yanno, PEOPLE. You'll have to elaborate on the Catholic Church bit, if you care to. ETA: As a general comment, I'd like to mention that corporations DO NOT actually get special treatment by the government. Certain industries do, to be sure. But as a general rule, traditional corporations do not. In fact, they are subject to double taxation -- their profits are taxed, and dividends distributed to owners are taxed. This is true of all the "mega-corporations" - the ones whose assets and revenues require them to be classified as "C" corporations, as opposed to passthrough entities.
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Post by robeiae on Aug 31, 2017 20:35:59 GMT -5
If Don is saying mega-corporations exist as they exist today because the government granted them special privileges and you're saying that it's simply a consequence of competition and the free market, I don't see how it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant, imo, in kind of the same way that since Arabic people invented algebra, we should blame them for poor test scores in math by today's students. Pointing to the origin of a thing doesn't mean the blame for the present shortcomings of the thing lies therein. Well again, I'm not "blaming." But you're still not getting it. The relationship between governments and corporations is developmental over time. It's not about the origin, per se. It's about the why and how of the assumptions that inform this relationship. Those are built on that development. And regardless, you're still wrong in claiming that mega-corporations are simply a product of the free market and competition.
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Post by Christine on Aug 31, 2017 20:57:36 GMT -5
It's irrelevant, imo, in kind of the same way that since Arabic people invented algebra, we should blame them for poor test scores in math by today's students. Pointing to the origin of a thing doesn't mean the blame for the present shortcomings of the thing lies therein. Well again, I'm not "blaming." But you're still not getting it. The relationship between governments and corporations is developmental over time. It's not about the origin, per se. It's about the why and how of the assumptions that inform this relationship. Those are built on that development. And regardless, you're still wrong in claiming that mega-corporations are simply a product of the free market and competition. Yes, Rob, I am getting it. I understand that you're pointing to mercantilism and claiming this is why corporations exist as they do today. You and Don are both drawing a line between the point of origin and corporations today, and claiming cause and effect. (That's the fancy way of saying blame.) Government is the reason why corporations exist, according to you and Don. The inference is that corporations or the like would not exist without government. I completely disagree., I've addressed this at length in previous posts you and Don have chosen not to quote and respond to. I've asked but apparently you're loathe to speculate on where commerce might be right now without the claimed influence of government. But seriously think of it: no government at all. No special privileges, and no restrictions. Where is commerce today? What do businesses do? What do business owners do? What do investors do? What do consumers do? If you can come up with some logical, entirely different scenario than what we have now, I'd be very interested to hear it, and I'm open-minded.
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Post by robeiae on Sept 1, 2017 8:31:21 GMT -5
No you're not getting it. Because again I AM NOT TRYING TO LAY BLAME here. That's what you are doing, that's what Don is doing. The fact of the matter is that your assertion--that "this whole notion that large, wealthy, powerful corporations exist due to the power the government has given them is absurd," and that instead it is the fault of free markets, alone--is wrong. It was wrong 100 years ago and it is wrong today.
And I'm not interested in speculating on commerce without government. Why? Because it's stupid and pointless. I want the government involved to some extent in commerce. That's it's job, imo. So why the hell would I answer some hypothetical about an imaginary world that has nothing to do with anything I'm saying?
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