I agree about business (big business, anyway) and government being separated. However I don't think the line between the two is blurry unless they are allowed to intermingle in the first place. Congress in particular was set up as a regulatory body. Congress, specifically, is charged with the regulation of interstate commerce. How can congress and the judiciary system, have particular commercial interests and still be an effective non biased regulatory measure?
Government can be defined as a legitimized monopoly on the initiation of aggressive force and coercion in a given geographical region. Private interest will always lobby this monopoly to pass protectionist legislation to protect their market share. This is not a problem of the unhampered market, but of the state itself. Without this monopoly on force, there would be no way for private interest to force otherwise peaceful people to buy certain products (even drugs) that are approved by the state.
I have heard of company stores. However, these were a result of limited social mobility created by coporatist policies. They are not a result of the free market. In an enivronment where entry to market is very easy, employees would have much more social mobility and would be able to change jobs or start their own businesses. You can not compare our current system to that of an unhampered free market with no barriers to entry. Company stores are a product of corporatism.
@cclodfe Sorry, I replied to the wrong one. Please see further down the thread - but I begin to lose patience at the repeated assertion of the premise that it's the state/statists/government to blame, when quite literally human beings can't interact without creating some sort of starting position or structure, even if it's a mutual "fuck you, you're stupid."
Of course the lines between private interest and govt are blurred. This is always the case in statist societies. The government has a monopoly on the initiation of force that private interest find quite handy. The govt can force industry to meet certain regulations, it can subsidize industry through taxation (theft), it can prevent consumers from buying products, it can arrest citizens for non-violent crimes etc. Private interest will always find this monopoly handy to do their bidding.
@cclodfe You use the words "government" and "industry" to mean separate things, when in every instance that humans have created societies which have produced and exchanged items of value, both have existed.
You can't have one without the other. This is why I'm not a Libertarian, even though I agree with many Libertarian ideals.
@cclodfe First, you're ignorant of history - corporations had a long history until around WW I of having their own paramilitary forces. Let's not even get into places like feudal Japan or Medieval Europe, where the use of force was not only the mark of power, it was outlined in very specific ways who could and could not use it, and in what ways.
Second, all societies are statist. All of them have some kind of "state," just as they all have some kind of economy. Even the migrants from (cont)
@stealthbadger Asia who crossed the Bering Strait either brought their "state" with them, created new ones when they arrived *even down in what is now Chile*, or some combination of both. The state - some form of hierarchy or structure used to make political decisions - is a part of human beings acting together to do anything more complicated than banging rocks together, and even then some sort of structure can help avoid injuries.
@stealthbadger and mostly I just like being left the hell alone, but something must fill the gaps left because our senses and linguistic abilities provide us so little information about the world and each other that some assumptions are made in order to fill in those gaps (in much the way that our brain "fills in" the blind spots where our optic nerve penetrates our retinas).
A corporation is a state created entity. You are still confusing market anarchy (libertarianism) with statism/corporatism/state capitalism. The state granted these corporations privileges that allowed them to form cartels in their industry. These cartels prevented others from entering the market. This limited employers in the market limited the social mobility of workers and lead to labor abuse. Read the Myth of the Robber Barons.
@cclodfe No. I am not. I am using the word corporation loosely to attempt to describe an economic entity rather than a state entity. Take away the corporate charter, and the guns are just as real.
It doesn't matter which kind of political/ social system that one could propose it will fail.They all have the same problem, people will seek a way to exploit the system to their personal advantage.
I agree with you on general principle, but for different reasons (and with a possible course of action implied). Differing social systems are models of how things "should" be to maximize something desirable when taking into account a particular set of axioms.
The problem with most out-of-the-box social systems is an overly-simplistic set of givens (the rest are just plain wrong). This is the peril of applying models to the real world.
I agree about business (big business, anyway) and government being separated. However I don't think the line between the two is blurry unless they are allowed to intermingle in the first place. Congress in particular was set up as a regulatory body. Congress, specifically, is charged with the regulation of interstate commerce. How can congress and the judiciary system, have particular commercial interests and still be an effective non biased regulatory measure?
YayMeth 11 months ago
@YayMeth The problem is that you can't get "what should be" from "what is."
stealthbadger 11 months ago
@stealthbadger Er. The other way around, rather. Sorry, I'm just starting my first cup of coffee.
stealthbadger 11 months ago
Government can be defined as a legitimized monopoly on the initiation of aggressive force and coercion in a given geographical region. Private interest will always lobby this monopoly to pass protectionist legislation to protect their market share. This is not a problem of the unhampered market, but of the state itself. Without this monopoly on force, there would be no way for private interest to force otherwise peaceful people to buy certain products (even drugs) that are approved by the state.
cclodfe 1 year ago
@cclodfe BTW, you've never heard of a "company store," have you.
stealthbadger 1 year ago
@stealthbadger
I have heard of company stores. However, these were a result of limited social mobility created by coporatist policies. They are not a result of the free market. In an enivronment where entry to market is very easy, employees would have much more social mobility and would be able to change jobs or start their own businesses. You can not compare our current system to that of an unhampered free market with no barriers to entry. Company stores are a product of corporatism.
cclodfe 1 year ago
@cclodfe Sorry, I replied to the wrong one. Please see further down the thread - but I begin to lose patience at the repeated assertion of the premise that it's the state/statists/government to blame, when quite literally human beings can't interact without creating some sort of starting position or structure, even if it's a mutual "fuck you, you're stupid."
stealthbadger 1 year ago
Of course the lines between private interest and govt are blurred. This is always the case in statist societies. The government has a monopoly on the initiation of force that private interest find quite handy. The govt can force industry to meet certain regulations, it can subsidize industry through taxation (theft), it can prevent consumers from buying products, it can arrest citizens for non-violent crimes etc. Private interest will always find this monopoly handy to do their bidding.
cclodfe 1 year ago
@cclodfe You use the words "government" and "industry" to mean separate things, when in every instance that humans have created societies which have produced and exchanged items of value, both have existed.
You can't have one without the other. This is why I'm not a Libertarian, even though I agree with many Libertarian ideals.
stealthbadger 1 year ago
@cclodfe First, you're ignorant of history - corporations had a long history until around WW I of having their own paramilitary forces. Let's not even get into places like feudal Japan or Medieval Europe, where the use of force was not only the mark of power, it was outlined in very specific ways who could and could not use it, and in what ways.
Second, all societies are statist. All of them have some kind of "state," just as they all have some kind of economy. Even the migrants from (cont)
stealthbadger 1 year ago
@stealthbadger Asia who crossed the Bering Strait either brought their "state" with them, created new ones when they arrived *even down in what is now Chile*, or some combination of both. The state - some form of hierarchy or structure used to make political decisions - is a part of human beings acting together to do anything more complicated than banging rocks together, and even then some sort of structure can help avoid injuries.
I'm not a fan of oppression, (cont)
stealthbadger 1 year ago
@stealthbadger and mostly I just like being left the hell alone, but something must fill the gaps left because our senses and linguistic abilities provide us so little information about the world and each other that some assumptions are made in order to fill in those gaps (in much the way that our brain "fills in" the blind spots where our optic nerve penetrates our retinas).
stealthbadger 1 year ago
@stealthbadger
A corporation is a state created entity. You are still confusing market anarchy (libertarianism) with statism/corporatism/state capitalism. The state granted these corporations privileges that allowed them to form cartels in their industry. These cartels prevented others from entering the market. This limited employers in the market limited the social mobility of workers and lead to labor abuse. Read the Myth of the Robber Barons.
cclodfe 1 year ago
@cclodfe No. I am not. I am using the word corporation loosely to attempt to describe an economic entity rather than a state entity. Take away the corporate charter, and the guns are just as real.
stealthbadger 1 year ago
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@stealthbadger " I am using the word corporation loosely to attempt to describe an economic entity rather than a state entity."
'Firm' is a better choice then.
"Take away the corporate charter, and the guns are just as real."
What guns?
bitbutter 1 month ago
It doesn't matter which kind of political/ social system that one could propose it will fail.They all have the same problem, people will seek a way to exploit the system to their personal advantage.
traog 2 years ago
I agree with you on general principle, but for different reasons (and with a possible course of action implied). Differing social systems are models of how things "should" be to maximize something desirable when taking into account a particular set of axioms.
The problem with most out-of-the-box social systems is an overly-simplistic set of givens (the rest are just plain wrong). This is the peril of applying models to the real world.
stealthbadger 2 years ago