Forum Post: Is it just a Libertarian thing?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 1:05 a.m. EST by looselyhuman
(3117)
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...caused by years of being ostracized by their own side? Sidling up and hearing your progressive concerns, nodding in agreement, then, solution: "End all government regulation and intrusion into the free market and let the nice corporations make everything better." As if that's even remotely compatible with your cause... And they will just stand there and tell you that their solution covers all the world's ills, even though it's quite obvious that their ideas only help children/labor/environment/99% in their vastly overwrought theories that are designed of, by, and for the 1%? It's David and Charles Koch sitting around talking about what would solve all their ills, then grinning their wolf grins at you and convincing you in their most charming manner that it solves your problems too. And you're a sheep.
Just sayin.
The rich deliberately sell poison as the cure, and Libertarians and the Tea Party are the result. OWS needs to find its progressive voice and cast out the teabaggers, libertarians and Paulites, they already have their own "movements" to play with.
It is what it is. I don't see how an alliance even makes sense.
Right, that's my concern. I want to believe it's possible but It seems cross-purposes despite all the well-meaning (and otherwise) spin to the contrary.
I defy you to name a megacorp that is not wholly or at least partially dependent on government largesse.
Go on, just name one. Oh you can't?
Libertarianism would make sense if the corporations screwing us over participated in a capitalist system. We're about as capitalist as Brezhnev-era Russia.
There will be megacorps in your preferred anarchy / neo-feudalist model, I promise. Monopolies form naturally. Wealth accumulates and snowballs as all the economics of scale kick in. Difference being, no government beholden to people (in any small degree) to stand toe-to-toe with them. Power of consumers? Please.
Wealth only appears to accumulate because the wealthy are subsidized by the state (subsidies, favorable tax breaks, etc). Think about how much continuous capital investment goes into a factory (upkeep, expansion, etc) or a railroad.Take away the backstops and corporations would go bust all the time - don't ask me, ask pretty much any major corporate exec.
I don't say scrap every regulation on the books (there's no pure-market based mechanism for, say, keeping corporations from imposing environmental costs on everyone else), but but let's not pretend that government helps them way more than it helps you.
Of course the easiest fix would be a ban on corporate and union political donations like they have in Canada...
Disagree about wealth accumulation, but not getting into it again. You're kind of proving my point though. IMHO you're not really addressing my concerns, just claiming your ideology does because of some perceived self-interest on your part. The solutions for 99% involve people working together to force the only institution that we nominally have a stake in to act in our interests once again.
Corporations would go bust, by the way, I don't disagree on that (nor on banning money from politics), but new cartels would form, just as they did in feudal times, or Somalia, and eventually those would become new economic monopolies.
Goodnight.
I agree with you except the last sentence... the rich have just as much influence on Canadian elections as they have here in the Us.
The degree by which a society is controlled has nothing to do with the system of government, rather the mentality of the people. The people have put up with being controlled so far by powerful interests, and that is what has happened. The rich control the government, so therefore, the government will not under any circumstances reduce the power of the rich. Corporations write all regulations, they love them, they help them grind out their competition.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/who-are-we/
We are open to all ideas.
We are the ideas.
We have no leader.
We are the leaders.
We stand united.
We stand as a voice of the people.
We hope for a constitutional government.
We hope for a sustainable economy.
We hope you will join us if you have similar interests.