Screw 'em if they hate us
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 09:13
VIEWED: 19860
PAGE 20 of 30
Quote:China, Japan, Taiwan, the EU. (None of them are fully capitalist)
I want to end up with an FMRI machine. Give me an example of a non-corporate, non-capitalist system that's around now that can make me an FMRI.
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"I want to end up with an FMRI machine. Give me an example of a non-corporate, non-capitalist system that's around now that can make me an FMRI."
What Siggy said.
"Yep. And all you had to do was give up your freedom to do, say, think, own, read or listen to anything the government said you couldn't - with the gulag waiting for you if you tried."
But your talking about a system of government, not an economic system. I only mentioned it b/c SergeantX did. If you want to see a free society with a socialistic economy look at Sweden.
And, as we've been through already, you yourself can't seem to find anything really good to say about the highly capitalist US, as a society. OTOH there are lots of good things to say about other countries that are both free politically - even freer than the US - with socialist economies
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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Yep, people constantly conflate economic systems with political systems. It IS possible to have a democracy and a socialist economy. (I think they're called socialist democracies, but I could be wrong! 
)
I want to get back to Sarge's (and to some extent Frem's) point: Corporations have sources of power above and beyond the government. It's not as if corporations would wither away if the law suddenly became silent on corporate rights. There are a lot of illegal corporations: The Yakuza, the Mafia etc. Our own robber barons had access to the Pinkertons and other private security firms and made free use of them. Today, corporations troll the internet and the media for complainers and whistleblowers, and summarily fire them, take them to court or both, exercising their considerable economic power.
If there were no laws regarding either workers or business it would prolly come to open warfare. In fact, it HAS come to open warfare in many places: that's called "revolution". In the USA, it's usually restricted to firefights, see Harlan County
But it seems to me that a path that was laid out for us by the Founding Fathers, and that is peaceful change through the process of voting. In theory, all it should take for the government .. and therefore the law and the corporations... to be brought to heel is concerted effort at the ballot box and YOUR efforts should be devoted to finding out why our democracy is not working the way it was envisioned, rather than just scrapping the whole concept of law.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Solution? Make separation of Corporation and State as enshrined in law as that of Church and state (actually it'll probably be best to make it more enshrined...).
Totally agree. But it doesn't take a lot of proactive legislation to do this. All that really needs to happen to achieve this separation is to cut them loose - remove the legal framework (special tax and liability laws, etc...) that gives them a privileged position to begin with.
Quote:
I really can't fathom where this idea (I'm not accusing anyone in particular of expressing this idea, but it is one I have heard expressed) that regulations are bad comes from.
Please, accuse me! It's very much what I mean to express.
Let me 'splain.I oppose regulation for essentially the same reasons I oppose war. Both involve resolving conflict through violence. The violence of regulation is insulated through layers of bureaucracy, but it's there.
But, like war, regulation is sometimes necessary. So I'm not I'm not saying there should be none, just that it should be considered as a solution only in situations where voluntary cooperation has proven futile.
In the libertarian narrative, the primary social injustice IS violence. And the core of anything that can justifiably be called a "crime" is the use of violence to force others to bend to your will. So, when we see problems in society we look for the violence. More often than not, it's there. And, more often than it should be, it's lurking in "regulation" - usually regulation devised by one group to enhance their power and privilege at the expense of others.
So, in the situation of corporate law, we have a set of regulations that grant certain groups - corporations - exceptional power and privilege at the expense of the rest of society. Worse still, corporations then use that power and privilege to lobby for further regulation that ensures their power and limits competition from the rest of us. That's why we're less than enthusiastic when people propose more regulation to deal with problems created by ill-conceived regulation in the first place. Why not just solve the root problem?
Quote:
Regulated business is a good thing, business does not self regulate. Corporations break the laws now, when there are laws to break, why on Earth would they suddenly stop when there are no consequences for their actions?
I'm in no way suggesting corporations, or anyone for that matter, should be allowed to break the law. They should have to follow all the same laws as the rest of us. But then that's where regulations are different. In general, they don't apply to everyone. Usually, they are specific rules to impose conformity on a specific subset of people.
Quote:
To me it sounds like saying people will stop committing murders, if we just stopped charging people with murder.
I can appreciate that point of view, and I'm not suggesting that all we need to do is quit picking on the corporations and they'll start playing nice. I'm just looking to address the root problems causing the imbalance of power in the first place. Market forces would have a much better shot at keeping the abuses you cite in check if these core imbalances were addressed.
Until those imbalances are resolved, I don't really have a problem with applying the superficial regulations as a quick-fix, but if that's all we do, we're just masking the problem by temporarily treating the symptoms. And we're doing so through a device that has the potential of making things worse - especially if the root problem is ignored.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Quote:
concerted effort at the ballot box
*insert very snide snicker here*
I did say ideas that would actually work in the real world.
Ask Victor L. Berger how well it worked when we DID freakin do it - we can elect em, sure, but if they won't seat em or recognize em, what then, eh ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Berger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs
In short, you're suggesting we play a rigged game at the card sharks table with his deck, and we can't even cut the cards.
(i.e. Diebold, ES&S, etc)
Doesn't even begin to address the fact that the other side can ignore the rules or even change them the moment those rules become inconvenient to THEM.
I'd like to sort matters without violence myself, but knowing as much about human nature and history as I do, I just don't see it happening that way - although ideally, all it would take would be for even a SMALL percentage of our public school "educated"(read: indoctrinated) to set aside their complete and total moral and personal cowardice and simply refuse to "play ball" instead of acting like a kindergarten clique selling each other out as fast as possible for a pat on the head from the very folk who are exploiting them the worst.
Only way I've ever seen to get that small percentage is to CREATE it, by getting to our younger generations before we mentally screw them up to the point of calcification, and we're doin that, but that takes time and effort most folk don't wanna spend on the issue.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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Quote:But the FMRI machine would still be made by a large corporation. Weren't you also against large corporations? Or are you okay with large corporations outside the US?
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:China, Japan, Taiwan, the EU. (None of them are fully capitalist)
I want to end up with an FMRI machine. Give me an example of a non-corporate, non-capitalist system that's around now that can make me an FMRI.
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So Frem, let me get this straight... because democracy doesn't seem to work because of failure of "the people" to engage at the ballot box you propose something even more radical (anarchy) as a workable solution? Heck, if you can't get people to even vote their own interest, what makes you think they'll create a whole new society?
Either that, or you're proposing what I said before: The smaller the number of people effecting change, the more radical their action has to be. In other words: a minority revolution. The imposition of anarchy by a minority.
But it's not as if people haven't changed, even in the last few decades: feminism, civil rights, environmental protection, religious fundamentalism. People are capable of changing their minds en masse for better or worse.
Our essential problem is the widespread confusion of corporations with democracy, equality, invention, and a good lifestyle. It's protective coloration that corporations (using their own media) cloak themselves with in order to escape notice. Commercials are as much propaganda as the old Soviet screeds ever were, and they sell that essential confusion hundred of times a day. ("GE. We bring good things to life") (GEEZER take note)
So, the first thing that has to happen is that people need to become uncomfortable... or at least uncomfortable enough to start looking for something else. I have no problems pointing the finger of blame at the health insurances, for example, sitting like friggin' leeeches in our carotid arteries. And THEN you have to take that message to a media outlet that the corps don't control.
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Quote:That's a little like saying... it's a corporation. Except it's owned by the State. And it pays VAT. And it's wage structure is regulated- the bosses only make 40X what the workers do, not 4000X. And the Union has managerial say.
But the FMRI machine would still be made by a large corporation. Weren't you also against large corporations? Or are you okay with large corporations outside the US?
So.. it's not really a corporation.
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Quote:But that's not the way it's done in China, Taiwan, Japan or the EU.
Originally posted by SignyM:
That's a little like saying... it's a corporation. Except it's owned by the State. And it pays VAT. And it's wage structure is regulated- the bosses only make 40X what the workers do, not 4000X. And the Union has managerial say.
So, I'm a little bit confused. Are you saying corporations are necessary, just that they should be regulated differently?
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Quote:That's exactly the way it's done. In China, most medium to large-sized businesses are owned by the government. In Taiwan it's about 50%. Wages are set by the government, as are the number of employees, employment policies etc. The EU has nationalized banks, transportation, energy, health insurance etc. In other industries (auto mfr) in Germany for example government and the unions sit at the table as equals with the owners to determine things like output, prices, wages etc. Businesses have to take responsibility for dipsosing of the packaging that they ship/ distribute the product with (which menas they use a LOT less packaging than we do!) In the EU, industries pay VAT (Value Added Tax). In ALL areas, the differential between the upper echelon and the rank and file is far less than the USA.
But that's not the way it's done in China, Taiwan, Japan or the EU.
Business forms- the organization that a business takes- is whatever we allow it to be, by law. If you change many aspects of corporate law: Who controls what, where the money comes from and goes, who is liable, etc. ... it's not really a corporation as YOU think of one. It may be a nationalized entity, a cooperative, or something else entirely. It's not as if only one form of business is possible. I can imagine a spectrum of possibilities.
So, I'm confused: Why are YOU confused?
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