Protowisdom, the key word here is greed and personal ambitions. Take a look how it was among people of "primitive cultures", among pre-Columbian Indians, African tribes or people of the far north. Initially, all were equal, because everyone could afford to have a shelter built out of straw or skins and make a spear out of sticks and rocks.They had their small wars all the time, but motivation to fight grew up with appearance of manufacturing and trade. Reasons could be differences in believes, over hunting grounds or land for grazing livestock, but a big loot could be obtained in rich countries. Greed grew up with population growth and now it is directed by corporations and big banks via governments. Prestige and power of dictators can be irrelevant to territories. As you may know Napoleon was consumed by wars in Europe and sold a huge chunk of land in North America to USA cheap. It was Lousiana of that time. He could save it for France instead of fighting European monarchies. Benjamin Franklin was criticized in America for purchasing a vast piece of land of "dubious" value. People are stupid.
When you give money to your "progressive" cause, you're speaking. Corporations are organized groups of people, as are countries. Only worshipers of State Power feel threatened by organizations other than the State. Corporations can speak for the collective interest of their employees just as the State can speak for the collective interest of citizens. The world is rife with conflicts. Countries often see their interests as mutually exclusive. It's not a "cold war mentality" to acknowledge the existence of these conflicts and respond appropriately. In my opinion, the responses of the Obama Administration are inappropriate, but that doesn't eliminate the need for a response. If you disavow the United States (assuming you're a US citizen), then whose interests do you embrace, and why?
This is one reason why we have most lousy presidents most of the times. Who has money, he has a lot of speech. Elections become auctions. This is a major deficiency of our democracy now, but it is going to change. America slowly evolves, socialistic reforms are coming.
bobov said, "Corporations are organized groups of people, as are countries. Only worshipers of State Power feel threatened by organizations other than the State. Corporations can speak for the collective interest of their employees just as the State can speak for the collective interest of citizens." What bobov conveniently forgets is corporations are "Mob Rule". bobov taught me was the concept of Ethical/Moral Diffusion amongst a mob. An individual might not hang a person while a mob would be more likely. An individual might not wrongly foreclose on the home of a family where a Mob is more willing. Witness: Romney's statement of loving to fire people. People no longer profitable to the business entity. He was part of the Inc./Mob. And might have been more compassionate if he were an individual. Every Corporation's Top Management's Heads should be on the "chopping block" for their Inc.'s bad behavior. Fines against the corporation are ludicrous, ineffective and target the poor stock holders and not the perps. If Corporations are indeed People - Treat Them as Such. Don't Do The Crime If You Can't Do The Time needs to apply to these people too. And no deluxe private jails either. Private Jails should look identical to public jails. Same beds, lines, TV's etc. Moi Inc-s are by nature and purpose pathologically sociopaths. No remorse for injury to others. No
I agree with your post except for the Clinton part, because he had no right to intervene in a civil war and bomb Serbia for seventy two days on false charges of genocide. The U.S. had also trained Croatians in Germany during the Bosnian war so they could fight the Serbs, so there definitely was a bias just as there is today towards the Russians. There was also a definite favoritism towards former Nazi affiliated nations such as the Croatians and Bosnians, in the same way there is today with Western Ukraine. It could also have to do with Germany's cultural affinity towards its former allies? Clinton was fluent in German and spoke to the German Chancellor every morning. I sensed also a German influence in social issues as well. But look, this is just my opinion so take it as you will It had been proven that the Albanians who were found dead in Kosovo by the Americans, (and Albright searched hard to justify her actions), were killed during the time we were bombing Belgrade, and not before it. The only ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is the one that happened after we entered the war, and it was the Albanians who were killing the Serbs to get them to leave...as they all did. All this was happening under the eyes of the peace keeping force. So much for that. In addition over one hundred ancient churches and monasteries were completely destroyed by the Albanians. Frankly I think all the problems in the U.S. today, whether it's the social issues or GMO's, go back to the Clinton era. I have my suspicions also that our State Departments foreign policies were formed during the Clinton administration, but I might be wrong although I can't help but see Zbiggy's Russian hating Polish hands in everything as far as Eastern Europe goes. Frankly I wouldn't trust Clinton in anything. Sorry!
What Moi "conveniently forgets" is that the behavior of corporations is almost always carefully considered and planned in advance by many people. It's done for the expected benefit of the corporation. This is not at all mob behavior, which is spontaneous, emotional, and grounded in group dynamics. I may add that someone has to do the hard work of what Schumpeter called "creative destruction" - ending inefficient, outmoded, unprofitable activities to free resources for socially useful and constructive activities. There are only so many people, so much knowledge, and so much money to go around. If those resources are wasted on things no longer useful, so that more is consumed than produced, society is set back. This seeming kindness winds up hurting people. A medical analogy would be gangrene of the foot. Should we be "kind" to the foot, allowing the gangrene to kill the patient, or do we amputate, causing suffering but saving the patient? Most people hate change, and losing a job because a business closes is painful, but the alternative is to suck the economic blood from society, leaving us unable to produce what we really want and need. Whether it's emotionalism or cynical political exploitation, obstructing "creative destruction" is a bad thing.
Ask yourself where money comes from, how it's earned. Money represents the productive and useful aspects of the economy. Activities that help lots of people in important ways attract a lot of money. Medicine attracts more money than fly-fishing. Computers attract more money than cigars. Automobiles attract more money than kites. So when these money-rich activities speak, they speak for many more people and much greater public interest than money-poor activities. That's why, in a democratic society, they speak with much louder voices. Those who say otherwise are just people who want more say than their contribution to society merits. You may well be right about "socialistic reforms" coming, but that's bad news for most everyone. It means a few self-righteous and pushy people will shoulder aside the majority.
This is a misguided black vs white generalization. Oligopolies threaten the free market through influencing regulations, laws, and tax law, price fixing and a wide variety of other anti competitive practices. Being against oligopolistic practices often has zero to do with favoring "state corporations" which is the other extreme, both of which are bad and the antithesis to a free market.
It most certainly is Mob Behavior because as bobov taught me it is about the diffusion of moral and ethical responsibility. Mr. Romney may not personally frack and risk his neighbors water supply Romney, Inc or as a member of a "mob", is willing to frack and risk his neighbors water supply for the Inc.'s profits. We have seen this over and over again. Inc.-s taking part in illegal, immoral behavior with little consequences and less reimbursement to the victims. If corporations are people too. We need a "responsible" corporeal bodies we can jail for crimes as they happen. Fines have been as effectual as "The War on Drugs". This sad state continues, courtesy of RepubloCratic Bush/Obama enforcement policies. Moi No
Please list America's oligopolies. There are none. Your comment is an apology for Statism. Businesses always seek any advantage they can. That's what they're supposed to do. Government is supposed to police things, and it does to the extent it's capable. The left always sees collusion when it's really just government incompetence.
If you acknowledge that I taught you about the diffusion of responsibility, you must also acknowledge that your learning was incomplete. See my earlier post about how this model does not apply to behavior planned over time. This is an aside, but fracking has been proven generally harmless as practiced. The fuss about it is the usual ignorance and fear exploited by the same people who want to return us to the 18th century in the name of the environment - the global warming, let's raise energy prices crowd. Idiots at best; cynical political exploiters at worst. You should look into it carefully before repeating their dunder-headed credo. Almost everything they say has been proven wrong. Your picture of a world ravaged by corporate crime is comical. People do things wrong; they make mistakes; they cut corners, etc. What I object to is your assumption, and that of the left you speak for, that the biggest, most intrusive, most oppressive, most powerful organization - the government - is our friend, but that all other voluntary human organizations are prone to felony, and that only constant vigilance and punitive law enforcement can keep them from rapine. You'll have to explain that. The biggest organization, all-powerful and practically unaccountable and only nominally committed to the public good, escapes your censure, but businesses, which exist to make profits by giving people what they need and want, must be watched. Who watches the watchers? It seems obvious to me that the market polices business. If a business fails to delight its customers it will fail. If only that were true of government.
Oil, Energy, Insurance, Food, Banking, Military, Healthcare, and so on. It does not matter who gets elected, President or Congress, they serve the Oligopolies who paid to get them there. Why is it that every other first world country has universal healthcare except the US but we have the higher health care costs ? Your yapping platitudes about the left and collusion is not the answer. I am a constitution loving fiscal conservative. I am not sure what you mean by collusion but if its "price fixing" then just check out some of drug price fixing fines over the years. There was talk by a few about changing regulations to allow generics but that was shut down in a hurry. You think Obama is going to upset the apple cart ? He obeys his Masters. I can go on and on through each sector talking about how that particular Oligopoly engages in anti free market practices but I am guessing there is no point. Just a the conspiracy nuts will not listen to reason and ignore reality, it is the same for those that blame everything on "socialist liberals". Both the left and the right in general are ignorant. Look in the mirror for an example. There are current books being written on the oligopolies in the US and you claim not to have heard of them. My guess is that you probably do not well understand what an oligopoly is as you are so one track that as soon as someone mentions any kind of corporation related issue you automatically go off the rails and assume the person is arguing for socialism. Of course the Oligopolies seek advantage where they can. The can and do act in their own interest. When ever a regulation is being made they are sitting at the table and good for them. The problem is that the folks who are supposed to be protecting "our" interests by keeping anti-competitive practices at bay are not doing their jobs because they work for the oligopolies. This is not some big conspiracy run by a select few. This is the result of numerous independent interests and influences acting on the system over time to create the system we now have. China, according to folks like Jim Rogers and other noted experts, has a more free economy than the US.
Yes, those are good categories. Greed and personal ambitions combine territoriality instincts with dominance hierarchy instincts, when they ARE NOT mainly driven by fear. That is more the case with the well off who have never had anything to fear. With someone who has been desperately poor, often without enough to eat, there is a more fear based greed and ambition for a situation which will provide safety. Instead of primitive, we could call these small tribal cultures, and usually they are called hunter-gatherer cultures.. The dynamic was/is that of family relationships, for a small tribe is an extended family with grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, parents, children, and people who married into the tribal family, all living together. Usually, they have separate little huts, but those are all close together. In some of them, there is a longhouse where everyone lives. Decision-making is more often than not made by the elders of the family, and everyone tends to share. That isn't necessarily entirely equal, but everyone receives enough. For example, if a large animal is caught, some members of the tribal family might get better cuts of meat than other members. Tribes did fight other tribes at times, but the wars were small because tribes were small. When tribes first learned agriculture, the Neolithic, they began to band together in larger villages and became very concerned with land ownership. The most powerful individuals and tribes slowly took control of everyone else, and the growth of towns, slavery, empires, and so forth proceeded from there. It was also about this time that animal herding cultures developed, which cultures liked to raid settled towns. We do have major problems with large corporations, but we have a choice of how to proceed. 1. We could limit the size of corporations so that there would always be a couple of hundred in each economic sector competing. Legislation there would require that when a corporation reaches a certain size, it would be forced to divide into daughter corporations. We would lose some economies of scale, but would gain greater freedom and greater variety in products. 2. We could turn corporations democratic. For example, a third of the board of directors of a corporation could be elected by the shareholders, a third by the employees, and a third by the customers. Then there would be an adapted bill of rights for each corporation, and so forth. 3. We could spread ownership so that everyone would have enough stock in one to several corporations to provide a supplemental income, and all the stockholders would elect a board more democratic than boards now are. That is to say, each shareholder would have one vote, rather than each shareholder having a vote for each share of stock owned, as is the case now. 4. We could go to government ownership of all corporations, but the problem there is that centralized decision-making reduces the diversity needed to solve problems in the most effective ways. A decentralized economy is more creativity and better at solving new problems. Still, as a last resort, it would end oligarchy. 5. We could do the desperate thing I am trying, because there is no solidarity among ordinary people so voters aren't developing and rallying around real solutions, which is allowing the upper class to slowly gain absolute power.. The desperate thing is to figure out how to show the wealthy that they themselves will be best off if everyone has an adequate standard of living, if there is high diversity, and if there is a high level of freedom.
Corporations themselves are run by boards of directors, who are elected by shareholders, but the largest shareholders have more votes because they own more shares. Therefore, corporations from time to time don't act in the interests of the small shareholders. Even less do they act in the interests of the ordinary employees and the customers. People would not feel threatened by corporations if corporations were small. However, more than fifty of the largest economies in the world are corporations, equating Gross Domestic Products with gross receipts. That means than somewhat more than 50 corporations are larger than all but somewhat less than fifty of the world's nations. About 15 years ago, the split was 50-50, but there has been much corporate growth since then. I haven't had the time to go through the statistics on all the nations and all the major corporations, and I haven't seen another summary report since 15 years ago. Then, there were even some European nations smaller than some corporations. Given that massive cash flow, corporations can easily bribe as many government officials as needed to get what they want. In the United States, there are two legal forms of bribery. The first form of legal bribery is campaign contributions, and corporations can mobilize more campaign contributions than any other group. Another form of legal bribery is giving government officials highly paid jobs when they retire. Probably, that happened with President Clinton, who worked to get several pieces of legislation the corporations wanted passed. When Clinton left office, he was in debt. Now, he is worth more than 100 million dollars. That money has mainly come from the wealthy in the form of high fees for speeches to various groups. That looks like legal bribery, although one would want to investigate more thoroughly to be sure. In the future, how many presidents would remain uncorrupted if they knew they could be worth more than a hundred million dollars soon after leaving office? Corporations are powerful enough to be feared in their own right. The government is the lesser of two evils, because people can vote to make changes if they rally together behind a change idea. In contrast, there is no way the public can vote to force a board of directors to do something the public wants. We have more power over the government than we have over the massively powerful corporations. We don't have enough power over government, but we do have more power over government.
Hate to inform ya, this situation existed long before Obama was elected, read a little more history and rant less.
"Oil, Energy, Insurance, Food, Banking, Military, Healthcare, and so on" are of course not oligopolies, except for the military, which doesn't belong on this list. They're all intensely competitive industries, with fluctuating prices, bankruptcies, mergers, many companies. They're all also highly regulated. These industries display none of the characteristics of oligopolies. An oligopoly is defined as "a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers." This is the opposite of the industries you list. I enjoy the phrase "yapping platitudes." Nice writing, even if it's only a bit of noise ... dare I say yapping? "I am a constitution loving fiscal conservative." That's how I would describe myself. If we're alike, why are you moved to such vituperation? When I said "collusion," I was responding to Moi's frequent suggestion that both parties and the government work together with big business to screw the middle class. I was suggesting that regulatory failures were more likely the result of incompetence than such collusion. "I can go on and on through each sector talking about how that particular Oligopoly engages in anti free market practices but I am guessing there is no point." You're right. There is no point. All properly managed businesses do what they can to improve their competitive position. That's what motivates them to develop new and better products, cut prices, improve service and delivery. Government is supposed to police businesses to prevent them going too far into anti-competitive behavior. You seem to be making the classic liberal's error of assuming businesses are, or should be, de facto arms of the government, acting in the same ways for the same reasons. Our system harnesses greed to the public good; businesses compete to better serve the public so that they can earn more profits. "Just a the conspiracy nuts will not listen to reason and ignore reality." Yet isn't your talk about "oligopolies" another conspiracy theory? "Both the left and the right in general are ignorant." Very true. You seem to occupy both sides at once - a self-proclaimed "constitutional fiscal conservative" who shares the left's uninformed misconceptions about how business works. I've noticed several leftists here who enjoy insisting that they're fiscal conservatives. Is that a new fad on the left? I don't suggest you're arguing for socialism, but it's unclear what you do argue for. You dislike business, yet you suspect the political process. If you have a consistent position, you haven't stated it here. Your suggestion that I don't know what an oligopoly is, while you refer to a list of some of the most brutally competitive industries as oligopolies offers unintended comedy. Have you ever worked in a business? I don't mean a summer job when you were a kid. I had a long career as a manager in a Fortune 100 company. "There are current books being written on the oligopolies in the US and you claim not to have heard of them." Indeed not. Might you name one or two of these books everyone is supposed to have heard of? Even if such books exist, that a political extremist or a conspiracy nut covers pages with words doesn't make them true. There are plenty of "books" which "prove" that the 9/11 attacks were a government conspiracy; that Jews knew about it in advance; that the Holocaust never happened; that race war is imminent so everyone should get a gun; that vaccine makers are poisoning us for profit etc., etc. I ignore such "books," as I do "books" insisting that competitive industries are oligopolies. Regulators often have backgrounds in the industries they regulate because the issues are highly technical and require specialized knowledge. That's lamentable but unavoidable, unless you want regulators who have no idea what they're doing. The regulators don't "work for" business - you're suggesting bribery - but often move back and forth between industry and government. Again, lamentable but unavoidable. I'm relieved you don't attribute everything to a conspiracy, but to the aggregate of many independent actions. On that, we agree. We disagree about the value of the resulting system. You obviously dislike what we have and want it replaced, even though you disavow socialism. Yet - and this is important - the only way to get from where we are to wherever you want to be is by the forcible intervention of the government. Left to itself, the economy will always evolve over time as the environment changes and new ideas and technologies emerge. But this is a gradual evolution. Rapid change can only be imposed by force, and I equate that with socialism. What's more, history teaches that economic decisions made for ideological reasons that lack a foundation in the interest of people and businesses are likely to have disastrous consequences. I don't want Barack Obama and his ilk bulldozing the American economy to rid us of theoretical oligopolies. If you're a Constitutionalist as you say, you should feel the same.
I made no claim that businesses should be de facto arms of the government ?? What I said is that the Government is in bed with the oligopolies and so they do not properly police things. You have this strange mindset that wants to defend the corporate structure at all costs. You seem to want to brand anyone who criticizes any element of corporations "oligopolies in this case" as a liberal. You did not respond to my examples of price fixing by drug companies or the laws that ensure unfair competition which is unfortunate. There are numerous other examples in other industries. Regulators are often political puppet and /or idiots. I have run into a few regulators over the years that are not but they are the exception. Removing regulations and laws that reduce competition would result in rapid change in many industries and this would not be "by force" as you suggest. Look at the SEC ... There is a good example of what you call "specialized knowledge" in regulators. This was a clown show where the clowns were giving AAA ratings to garbage. That you claim to be "a manager" at a fortune 100 Company and thinks this somehow this makes you knowledgeable is good evidence that you do not know much. No offence but the fact of the matter is that stupid managers are a dime a dozen and anyone who has worked in industry for any length of time realize this. Having spent decades working in high level technical Sales I have dealt with hundreds of "managers" in hundreds of companies in hundreds of industries. I have worked for the largest diversified company on the planet (bonus marks if you can guess who that is) and the third largest engineering firm in the world. I highly doubt that if we compare dick sizes you will have a chance but as I said... merely working for a large company means squat. With the exception of Clintion and congress during his day, there have been no "fiscal conservatives" in Government. Reagan was the worst btw followed by Bush Jr. Don't even get me started on that clown show. To end where we started .. Oligopolies. The Military is a massive oligopoly and the biggest welfare program that we have. It is a joke that congress can be on a committee and knows that a massive contract I going to ABC- Missiles and they can then invest in that company prior to the news hitting the street. Legal insider trading keeps congress about as corrupt as you can make it.
Your objection to corporate votes is equally applicable to votes for public office. In a public election, parties and factions vie for votes. The group with the most votes wins and proceeds to carry out its agenda. It may or may not consult the interests of those who lost the election. When Democrats too control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress in 2009, they were frank about their indifference to the opinions of Republicans. Major parts of their agenda such as Obamacare were passed without even consulting Republicans. So yes, corporate elections leave little say for the losers - just like public elections. Corporations act as they should - in the corporate interest. Governments don't generally act on behalf of the "little people," even if politicians sometimes say they do. Any large organization, be it a country, a corporation, a non-profit, etc., acts to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, which means the weak and the small get short shrift. If you don't fear the government, you shouldn't fear corporations. Between corporations and the government, corporations are the lesser evil because people can vote with their dollars every day to approve or disapprove of what the corporation is doing for them, while government elections are only held every few years. What's more, corporate customers, to whom corporations must listen or perish, have direct, tangible knowledge of the corporation's product, while citizens have only a vague idea of what government is doing. Government functions are far too broad for most people to have any direct knowledge of them. Corporations change policies overnight when customers demand it; government is likely to persist in its mistakes at least until a change of party. The market is a far more democratic institution than the government. That's why I have little fear of corporations, despite their occasional malfeasance. From government malfeasance, where can we turn for relief? Once abuse becomes institutionalized, not even elections can effect change.
Casper, Certainly the Shanghai agreement occurred long before Obama. However, Obama / Kerry polarizing the world into the likes of Red/Not Red has breathed new life into that Shanghai agreement. Si ? Watch for Russia defending China's claims to those disputed areas with Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, etc. China has a new "best buddy". And the Chinese and Russians are not traditionally, friends. Not even in the Red days. And it took Obama/Hillary-Kerry to pull it off. Bravo Obama / Hillary-Kerry and Merkle too. Where are the obstreperous French when you need them to solely object to this or that ? Moi No
You seem to forget we fought both of them in Korea and Vietnam and that nasty little phase called the cold war. As I said, read more, rant less.
And before that we fought the Germans and Japanese in a world war. So What ! Casper, DEAR You keep evading the point of YOUR government in Kiev was installed by an illegitimate vote of Parliament. Illegitimate because it was "under threat" to the personal well being of the M.P.-s with rebellion in the streets. So under such circumstances, YOU, Casper DEAR go tangential. Go for it, I may not reply. I prefer less tangential discussions. Discuss the point. POINT: The vote by Parliament was not a legitimate vote. It was under threat and coercion. If it ain't so, tell me how it ain't so. Not that some years ago the realpolitik was different. Or not. Moi No
Bobov:::Your objection to corporate votes is equally applicable to votes for public office. Protowisdom:::Whether I object or not depends on what the rest of the economic system is doing. For example, if there is a growing oligarchy, it is dangerous to give wealthy top executives and major shareholders extra power. If there is no danger of oligarchy, then allowing the top executives and major shareholders to pay themselves more is often an important incentive. There is a hint that is interesting, but I don't know whether it is true or not - investigation is needed. On a general shareholder message board, people were complaining that the more CEO's are paid, the worse job they do. bobov::: In a public election, parties and factions vie for votes. The group with the most votes wins and proceeds to carry out its agenda. Protowisdom::: One difference is that board of directors elections are almost never contested. The board of directors is made up of the top executives and major shareholders. Once a year they send a request for a proxy to small shareholders. The proxy has only one group of candidates, those already on the board or those the board wants to add. Then there is a vote to approve the salaries recommended by the shadowy salary committee. Then, a line to approve reappointment or appointment of the auditing firm. That's it. Period. bobov::: It may or may not consult the interests of those who lost the election. When Democrats too control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress in 2009, they were frank about their indifference to the opinions of Republicans Protowisdom::: Actually not. To control the Senate, de facto, a party has to have 60 members, and the Democrats did not have that many members in the Senate. bobov::: Major parts of their agenda such as Obamacare were passed without even consulting Republicans. Protowisdom:::It's quite possible you don't remember or didn't notice, because to understand what happened, one has to combine all the political moves over a long period of time. Looking at the entire process, it is absolutely untrue that Republicans did not have input. In reality, Republicans had veto power. That DOES NOT mean you are dishonest, because not very many people integrate the entire sequence. The Republican tactic since Clinton had been to demand a compromise on health care legislation. Then President Clinton or President Obama accepted most of the Republican demand in a compromise. Then, the Republicans said the compromise wasn't enough and now they wanted additional changes. Long ago, Democrats and a number of corporations first wanted a single payer system. The Republicans then demanded that an expanded health care system be done via the purchase of health care insurance from health care businesses. Clinton for the most part gave in, and then adds were run to turn people against the legislation, which happened, and the legislation was dropped. So trying to start again, Obama started with private health insurance, but wanted the government to set the costs. The Republicans objected and forced a change so that the health care businesses could set their own costs in the system. Obama held out by proposing a public option, a government health insurance that people could buy if they didn't want to buy from a private business. That would have been less expensive of course. The Republicans then forced Obama to drop that from the bill. There were also a few other issues along the way. Thus, Obama's health care legislation is mainly a Republican bill, if one looks at it accurately. bobov::: Corporations act as they should - in the corporate interest. Protowisdom::: Here, I think there is an honest philosophical difference. You are saying corporations should have the equivalent of sovereign power. An alternative view would be that the purpose of the corporations is to help support the entire population. That isn't a capitalist-socialist dimension. A privately owned business can either be sovereign, or could be part of a general effort to support the population. In our base society, to which we are adapted by evolution, the hunter-gatherer tribe of extended family members, hunters may be free to hunt any way they like, but the game is meant to feed everyone. Likewise, women may hunt for roots, berries, etc. the way they like, but the food is to support the entire tribe. Any competition is gentle. So nature has set us up psychologically to most fit with an economy in which corporations have much freedom, but their ultimate purpose is to support everyone. Owners of businesses could each be independent responsible administrators. It would even be fair for them to have a higher income, as long as everyone is adequately taken care of. On the other side, the former USSR and other communist nations developed an upper class of top Communist Party members. The nation was then run for the benefit of those upper class Communists. The Party did not administer those nations for the benefit of the citizens. So the Communist Party was almost exactly the same as corporations are now. That is the reason I am saying that the philosophical difference is not a capitalist-socialist dimension. bobov::: Governments don't generally act on behalf of the "little people," even if politicians sometimes say they do. Any large organization, be it a country, a corporation, a non-profit, etc., acts to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, which means the weak and the small get short shrift. If you don't fear the government, you shouldn't fear corporations. Protowisdom::: Since I fear OVERLY LARGE corporations and overly large corporations control the American government, I fear both in this case. However, Switzerland is a very democratic government, and I would not fear a Swiss type government. There are also some other good governments in the world which promote the welfare of all their citizens. There are also many bad governments in the world. And governments in between, of course. bobov:::Between corporations and the government, corporations are the lesser evil because people can vote with their dollars every day to approve or disapprove of what the corporation is doing for them, while government elections are only held every few years. What's more, corporate customers, to whom corporations must listen or perish, have direct, tangible knowledge of the corporation's product Protowisdom::: Customers don't have that much knowledge. For example, most customer don't know which hospital is really best, or is in a position to choose in an emergency. Most customers don't know which items of clothing will fade rapidly and which will retain their colors for a longer period of time - due to different dyes. Most customers don't know which appliance or other product will really last longer. Most customers don't know exactly how much of each ingredient there is in a food product. bobov::: while citizens have only a vague idea of what government is doing. Government functions are far too broad for most people to have any direct knowledge of them. Protowisdom: American citizens anyway. There are nations in which citizens know a lot more about their governments than Americans do. bobov::: Corporations change policies overnight when customers demand it; government is likely to persist in its mistakes at least until a change of party. The market is a far more democratic institution than the government. That's why I have little fear of corporations, despite their occasional malfeasance. From government malfeasance, where can we turn for relief? Once abuse becomes institutionalized, not even elections can effect change. Protowisdom:::Actually, democratic governments have managed many reforms, although that may be changing as corporations gain increasing power over government. Corporations don't respond well to complaints when they are powerful enough. For awhile, some years ago, corporations were suing customers for libel if the customers complained about a product. A stop was put to that then, but if protective laws changed, probably corporations would begin suing customers again. About 15 years ago, the Federal Reserve had about 100,000 complaints from customers of stockbrokers per year. However, there was so little staff that the unit wasn't able to do anything about the great majority of complaints Of course, the Fed had too little staff because the corporations didn't want the stockbrokers investigated. We have had many cases where corporations have tried to deny the existence of defective parts that they were obligated to repair. Then we have had some more serious crimes. A couple of decades ago, the baby food corporations were marketing baby formula in a way that led to the deaths of at minimum hundreds of thousands of infants per year. What they did was to send sales people to the underdeveloped nations, dressed like nurses, where they would talk new mothers into giving their infants formula rather than breast feeding them. They gave enough free samples to the women to last until their milk dried up. After the mothers' milk dried up, the problems began. A number of mothers couldn't afford to buy enough baby formula, which led to the deaths of their infants. Other mothers had no clean water to mix the formula with, so their infants died from disease. The General Assembly passed a bill to, as much as the UN can, ban-as-much-as-possible the practice of the baby food manufacturers who were doing this. The United Nations doesn't have the power to impose a real ban. The United States was the only nation in the world to vote against the resolution, because the baby food manufacturers were American. This illustrates how much current corporations actually care about their customers. When it is in their own financial interests, corporations kill their customers.
I challenged you on several key points, including the definition of an oligopoly and the supposed existence of a large literature supporting your ideas. You failed to meet my challenges, but just repeat what you said before. You do, however, pile up personal abuse, trying to substitute insults for facts and logic. Very weak. It's true that many corporate managers are dumb. Are you not a manager? I was for many years a product developer, also a product manager and a strategic planner. I was one of the smart guys who created the products and strategies guys like you are hired to carry out, and I too worked in high tech. We used to hire salesmen by the hundred and if revenue dipped, we'd lay them off by the hundred. Good luck selling your crackpot theory.
I'm sorry, but Republicans would not have done any better in this situation. When Americans finally realize their entire government, both the donkeys and the elephants, are incompetent, then maybe the government will change for the better.
