eMansipater... *swooon*  |
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Wow. There are things about the world you are evidently yet to discover. Consider the legal status of the corporation.
The depth of your ignorance astounds. Consider that the legal status of the corporation was granted by the government. edit... The anarcho-capitalist libertarian and Austrian economist Murray N. Rothbard, in his Power and Market (1970), attacked limited-liability laws, but argued it was possible similar arrangements may emerge in a free market, stating, Finally, the question may be raised: Are corporations themselves mere grants of monopoly privilege? Some advocates of the free market were persuaded to accept this view by Walter Lippmann's The Good Society. It should be clear from previous discussion, however, that corporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, such individuals would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation, and that beyond this their personal funds are not liable for debts, as they would be under a partnership arrangement. It then rests with the sellers and lenders to this corporation to decide whether or not they will transact business with it. If they do, then they proceed at their own risk. Thus, the government does not grant corporations a privilege of limited liability; anything announced and freely contracted for in advance is a right of a free individual, not a special privilege. It is not necessary that governments grant charters to corporations. Indeed, under the influence of lobbyists and other agents no doubt in the pay of.... private capital. Actually it can be argued that the rise of the Corporation marks the shift in capitalism from the power of the Owners of capital to the power of Managers of capital. A struggle between aristocrats as far as most people are concerned. Furthermore the will of shareholders is now minimal and fleeting, and analogous to the role of voters in a super-state democracy, less than that in most cases, share-holders are mere motes of hot-money shifting from place to place, un-aware, irresponsable, un-empowered. We are all, in the West, shareholders now (well anyone with a pension or a savings account anyway). This status really isn't worth much more than sweaty greasy wads of cash at best. Stake-holder capitalism for the win. The owner, the worker, the customer, the neighbor, the supplier, etcetera etcetera. In fact I contend that we need to know eachother more. That or become mutually alienated fodder for the likes of Goldman fucking Sachs. |
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Wow. There are things about the world you are evidently yet to discover. Consider the legal status of the corporation.
Ok. My bad. I totally forgot about this legal status thing, especially the limited liability part and stuffs like that. I already had such a discussion with a so called left libertarian, and as a share holder myself, this gave me a freaking headache. He claimed that modern capitalism is based on this limited liability legal thing, as share holders don't have to respond to what the company does, at least not beyond what they personnaly invested. So to him the state protects shareholders from legal and moral responsbilities that could be engaged by the company. Then left liberals use this as a reason/excuse to do other state-involved stuffs such as universal dividends and stuffs like that. This personnaly gives me nausea. Anyway, I just hope that at some point shareholdings will be truly anonymous (which is only possible with a truly anonymous currency), so that companies will not need the help of the state anymore in order to protect their shareholders. christ.  |
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Government has never been proven to be a sustainable and optimal solution for the people, period. I'm not advocating any particular system but what we have had has never worked.
Yes, human beings and their activities continue to be flawed, limited and corruptible. We should replace the buggers with sleek gray machines. |
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Small cliques of powerful people that recognize that human beings are not purely economical creatures. Yes it's true, sociopaths can be very good at figuring people, knowing how to play them beyond their wallets. If you think that all society needs is market dynamics then you don't even realize that there is a higher game. Kicking government is precisely that, railing against the existence of human dimensions whose needs supersede market structures.
I never said all we need is market dynamics. I said our current form of government is immensely corruptible as it is composed of the same people you so vehemently describe in the following paragraphs. Democratic controls over them are much weaker than you wish to think, and the controls shrink the larger the government grows because it becomes an opaque machine no-one fully understands. For instance I cannot believe the majority desire is to start costly wars in other countries, nor condone torture, and I know there is not one person who actually knows all the laws on the books. Yet this is exactly the things the largest governments are producing. Since I'm not an anarchist, and since it's off topic to the discussion about monopolies, I will leave it up to the anarcho-capitalists to argue their side on how to best further 'human dimensions' not catered for by market forces. People naturally choose cheap because they have limited funds
Yes, and you are trying to force them to choose expensive instead because you 'know better'. That is not democratic. Left to market forces children themselves would still be crawling down mines or up chimneys or some other industry that can benefit from their dexterous little fingers, the clothing industry perhaps, because it's 'economical' and yields higher returns for the stockholder. Actually in many parts of the world children are still used this way.
Meanwhile your ideology blows said children up with cluster bombs. I said we should have few laws, not no laws. But I'm not an anarchist so others will have to bring the thread discussion on this subject on topic. Well humans have other needs expressed in political requirements over economic ones
economic power. These are the political realities. There is simply more to life than money. If you ignore that the consequences can be as disastrous as the rise of the 3rd Reich, or of Stalin or Pol Pot and the like.
The political reality is that your belief in government is utopian. With reality as a guide, the larger and more controlling a government becomes, the more crimes it will commit against the very people it is said to represent. A large government is fundamentally undemocratic because it is in its nature to be corrupt. Now you're talking sense. This is a far more sensible discussion than "Gurn'mint bad, boo!", proper questions should be asked, what should be the limits of government, how should government be goverened, how should it be kept accountable, how should we balance the needs of the individual with those of the collective, what should be its mandate, its objectives and so on. I don't know where you think you read me having utopian and unrealistic expectations of government let alone supporting the blowing-up of kids or anyone else with cluster bombs or any other weapon, but frankly that is a thread for grown up debate elsewhere. Personally I can see the logic of the idea of limited government, but in practice I believe limited government tends to have government not do some of the things where I think it's role is most meaningful and important. If it were possible to have such a thing as a Social-Minarchy, then that would be my choice, but I'm doubtful that such a thing is possible. I beleive bitcoin can be one less thing for government to have to manage and risk getting wrong, as I beleive with bitcoin the money supply could always automatically match the needs of the economy, it's a whole new technology and implies whole new ways of doing things that might make this possible. There's a long way to go yet though, and frankly I think bitcoin need not replace fiat money any time soon. Makes a good additional choice of money that's for sure. I do agree however that government bloat is bad. As with many questions in life it is a matter of balance and judgment, not sweeping formulas and theories thought up by bearded old men long ago, or shady think-tanks backed by billionaires or the mad ravings of bigoted astro-turf loud-mouths. We should step up and address the matter on an ongoing basis, not throw the baby out with the bath-water and simply write off the whole requirement for any government at all as being equal to the worst excesses and the worst implementations of the concept. The expanding bureaucracy is constantly expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.This is a bad tendency, but it is not specific to government, as has already been pointed out in the thread several times, this is a tendency of large private organizations as well. It is a managerial, structural question. |
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I certainly don't advocate hiding anything from citizens. I would much rather openly discuss the negative effects of lobbying and other means by which corporations try to capture government. Even better, let's all discuss the appropriate role of corporations. Should they exist? If so, what kinds of powers should we let them have?
Sorry to intrude, but I've just red this amazing paragraph and I can't help noticing how ugly it sounds. Corporations are nothing but a bunch of people working together in order to reach a common goal. You don't question the existence of people. You may judge their acts, but not their existence. And corporations do nothing but selling stuffs to people who are willing to buy them. They force no one to do so. Wow. There are things about the world you are evidently yet to discover. Consider the legal status of the corporation. |
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Government is merely a power-structure based on political energies.
Politics is a higher force than economics. If you don't understand that then you are lost, and cannot be helped.
This is again talking in metaphors to avoid seeing that you're going against the will of the many. Politics is not a magical energy working for the greater good of mankind. Governments are small cliques of powerful people acting in their own best interest, which we all hope sometimes coincides with that of the people. Again, if people agreed with your opinion in general, monopoly controls would be entirely useless since people would naturally strive to choose choice rather than cheap. But they don't. You're the minority. Small cliques of powerful people that recognize that human beings are not purely economical creatures. Yes it's true, sociopaths can be very good at figuring people, knowing how to play them beyond their wallets. If you think that all society needs is market dynamics then you don't even realize that there is a higher game. Kicking government is precisely that, railing against the existence of human dimensions whose needs supersede market structures. People naturally choose cheap because they have limited funds, but most don't like that their funds are so limited in the first place because of lowering wages in the face of unleashed 'free market capitalism', or higher costs on employers to pay (in the US) health-insurance oligopolies should workers get sick, or being forced into the hands of the debt industry while working too hard to raise their children due to the perpetual fear of losing their insecure jobs. Left to market forces children themselves would still be crawling down mines or up chimneys or some other industry that can benefit from their dexterous little fingers, the clothing industry perhaps, because it's 'economical' and yields higher returns for the stockholder. Actually in many parts of the world children are still used this way. All this "government! Boo-Hiss" rubbish is an irrelevant waste of time, it's the kind of question robotic people in cheap teevee sci-fi ask, "Why do humans cry? Why do humans laugh? Why do humans need families and friends? Why do humans have days off? surely it would be more efficient and productive if they did not have days off?" Well humans have other needs expressed in political requirements over economic ones because humans are more than just walking packets of bio-capital waiting to be factored into some production process and optimized for profit maximizing output, people are also more than just consumers waiting to absorb said output. And super-successful enterprises can come to wield power that becomes inimical to the social wellbeing of human communities, so the political choice of conscious human beings is to curtail such massive aggregations of economic power. These are the political realities. There is simply more to life than money. If you ignore that the consequences can be as disastrous as the rise of the 3rd Reich, or of Stalin or Pol Pot and the like. |
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Government is merely a power-structure based on political energies.
Politics is a higher force than economics. If you don't understand that then you are lost, and cannot be helped.
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That's what Wal Mart and their ilk want you to think, if you beleive this crap you are either extremely naive, or some sort of lobbyist and therefore paid to beleive it.
This is absolutely what they believe. They aren't shills. They aren't naive, either. They're just brainwashed and have been turned into ruthless greed-machines. The most pathetic part is that they will never be "inside." No riches. No freedom. Just "useful idiots" who will someday have to contemplate the desert that they helped create. Except that even then, they won't see their own crucial roles in bringing about ruin. You might not like it but the reality is that people want Walmart. They will weather awful service for cheap prices. Some opponents get emotional about Walmart's size because they equate big with bad and a somehow unfair loss of choice, but the fact of the matter is that choice has a cost. And unfortunately, as a general rule, people don't want to pay for it. No amount of good intentions and emotion will change that you, the planned market advocate, want something other people do not want to pay for. You might be successful in hiding the cost and forcing them to pay for it through government lobbying and subsequent laws, but you might want to ask yourself why force is required in the first place. If you were truly on the side of the majority, a TV ad for a more expensive competitor with greater choice would have sufficed. Said with the fixed-eyed certainty of the fanatic. Walmart screws the farmer with its Monopsony-power and uses that to undercut the small operater with its Monopoly power. It is ironic that those that profess to want life in a free society are nonethless happy to profit from the slavery of others. The sweat-shop worker and the endebted farmer are the victims of your so called freedom, never mind any loss of choice. Fuck the weak, consume the poor, the world belongs to the powerful and freedom to the strong, this is the legend of the 'Libertarian', ally of the economic-slaver and the billionaire alike. |
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What is the purpose of anti-trust legislation? Is it to protect consumers from monopoly pricing, or protect competitors that cannot compete? It seems to me that the goals are conflicting. By forcing "monopolies" to charge higher prices, it hurts the consumer, though it helps their competitors. This is a good read. The theory of predatory pricing has always seemed to have a grain of truth to it--at least to noneconomists--but research over the past 35 years has shown that predatory pricing as a strategy for monopolizing an industry is irra- tional, that there has never been a single clear-cut example of a monopoly created by so-called predatory pricing, and that claims of predatory pricing are typically made by com- petitors who are either unwilling or unable to cut their own prices. Thus, legal restrictions on price cutting, in the name of combatting "predation," are inevitably protectionist and anti-consumer, as Harold Demsetz noted. Even in the cases where a competitor seemed to have been eliminated by low prices, "in no case were all of the competitors eliminated."(25) Thus, there was no monopoly, just lower prices. Three cases seem to have facilitated a merger, but mergers are typically an efficient alternative to bankruptcy, not a route to monopoly. In those cases, as in the others, the mergers did not result in anything remotely resembling a monopolistic industry, as defined by Koller (i.e., one with a single producer). In sum, despite over 100 federal antitrust cases based on predatory pricing, Koller found absolutely no evidence of any monopoly having been established by predatory pricing between 1890 and 1970. Yet at the time Koller's study was published (1971), predatory pricing had long been part of the conventional wisdom. The work of McGee, Elzinga, and other analysts had not yet gained wide recognition. The search for the elusive predatory pricer has not been any more successful in the two decades since Koller's study appeared. The complete lack of evidence of predatory pricing, moreover, has not gone unnoticed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio (1986), the Court demonstrated knowledge of the above-mentioned research in declaring, effectively, that predatory pricing was about as common as unicorn sightings. Zenith had accused Matsushita and several other Japanese microelectronics companies of engaging in predatory pricing--of using profits from the Japanese market to subsidize below-cost pricing of color television sets in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled against Zenith, recognizing in its majority opinion that a predatory pricing conspiracy is by nature speculative. Any agreement to price below the competitive level requires the conspirators to forgo profits that free competition would offer them. The forgone profits may be considered an investment in the future. For the investment to be rational, the conspirators must have a reasonable expectation of recovering, in the form of later monopoly profits, more than the losses suffered.(26) The Court also noted that "the success of such schemes is inherently uncertain: the short-run loss is definite, but the long-run gain depends on successfully neutralizing the competition."(27) The Court continues, "There is a consensus among commentators that predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful."(28) That's what Wal Mart and their ilk want you to think, if you beleive this crap you are either extremely naive, or some sort of lobbyist and therefore paid to beleive it. |
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