[quote=surveyor][quote=CA renter]
For one thing, private entities are even less accountable to “We the People” than the govt is. Personally, I fear a powerful, unaccountable group of private capitalists far more than a wealthy government that is run “by the people and for the people.”
The problem arises when a select few essentially take over the govt via corruption and bribery — and when “We the People” have our rights and power stripped from us — so that the elite can do whatever benefits them, to the detriment of everyone else.[/quote]
A powerful government that is unaccountable to no one, is far worse than a secret cabal of robber barons who are at least subject to the laws and government of the United States. There is no check on government except for itself. This is a principle from the founding fathers.
However powerful today’s robber barons are, they are still vulnerable to an essential fact: they are only able to make their money by persuading people to willingly entertain their businesses. If people are not willing to use their service or product, they are finished. Today’s businesses are also vulnerable to the government. They can be broken up or laws can be passed against their practices.
You can assail all you want against businesses, but they cannot forcibly take your money. People have to willingly give it. There is no such restriction on government. If the government wishes to take it, it will.
When businesses succeed, they often bring everyone else with them, not just the head of the company.
No, businesses are not perfect. But they are not in a position of absolute power, like the government. Between those two evils, I would rather choose the businesses, limited by the government and by the power of persuasion, rather than a powerful government, which can only take by force. That’s what the founding fathers knew.[/quote]
But the government is supposed to be accountable to “We the People.” That’s what the founding fathers wanted.
The “robber barons” are NOT accountable to the people, and they are only subject to the laws that they create for themselves! Who do you think is behind all the bills submitted to Congress that determine where money will go? Do you think it’s the empty-headed suits on Capitol Hill? I can assure you, the robber barons are behind the great majority of laws that control the flow of money, either in the form of taxation, or the regulations that FORCE us to use certain services in order to transact business (all under the guise of “protecting the consumer” when creating laws that require us to use “licensed” people/entities — who are almost always associated with a group of powerful lobbyists).
What about intellectual property? We are FORCED, by law, to purchase goods and services that might be more expensive and less effective, because our govt protects the rights of certain businesses/people to exclusively market a good or service.
What about limited liability that protects gamblers and speculators from responsibility when they cause great harm to innocent people?
Are you honestly going to tell me that we had a choice when all the bailouts (trillions of dollars, and we have yet to see all the damage!) were passed to protect — and grow! — the wealth of the robber barons who decimated our society?
No, we do not have a choice, and the elite are NOT held responsible for the damage they inflict on our society.
If “free-market” capitalism is such a Panacea, can you show us a single example of a “free market, capitalist” nation (without any social safety nets or public regulation/control over it’s natural resources and infrastructure, or any other form of “socialism”) that has performed better than its more “socialist” peers?
