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> Shrink the reach of the federal government, and we'd be looking at rule by corporations Nonsense. The corporations are given free reign and support by the go

by maratd 11y ago

> Shrink the reach of the federal government, and we'd be looking at rule by corporations Nonsense. The corporations are given free reign and support by the government. If the government didn't establish favorable regulations, they would be slowly whittled away by their smaller, nimbler competitors. Economies of scale aren't a simple slope. They're a bell curve. After you get to a certain size, any additional growth is detrimental and you can only exist through artificial means. Get rid of big government and you get rid of big corporations too!

Frondo 11y ago
There's no competitive advantage to not polluting, or we wouldn't ever have needed an EPA in the first place! There's such an imbalance of power between employer and employee that there's no meaningful competitive advantage to a safe workplace; if employees really were all self-empowered free agents, and not scared and hungry people with families and children to support, we wouldn't have needed an OSHA in the first place! All the regulations the libertarians want to turn back, they all came about in response to the world working so imperfectly that it had to be changed with force of law. Undoing that, on the basis of a theory with absolutely no real-world evidence of working? That just doesn't make sense.
- maratd 11y ago
  > There's no competitive advantage to not polluting, or we wouldn't ever have needed an EPA in the first place! Why do you need the EPA again? My local government represents my locality. It can easily sue in civil court for any damage to the environment and use the resulting funds to make repairs. With the feds stepping in, makes this scenario much more complicated and difficult. They have jurisdiction. > There's such an imbalance of power between employer and employee > self-empowered free agents Let me posit that if you have a traditional employer, you are not a "self-empowered free agent". Ditch your employer. Thank the maker we're slowly moving toward that eventuality. > All the regulations the libertarians want to turn back, they all came about in response to the world working so imperfectly That's one possibility. Another is that "special interests" lobbied for those changes at which point the politician came up with a more pleasant justification for said regulations, sold them to the ignorant public, and now they're in place. Which do you think is more likely?
  - Frondo 11y ago
    The EPA's a good example, I think, because it's the big businesses that continually lobby against it. Where are the big industrial players that sit back and laugh at how pollution restrictions are benefiting them? Because it seems like the big businesses always complain about the EPA as an emblem of government overreach, even though getting rid of it would be good for them and bad for everyone else, especially the people in the community suffering from the pollution! And your answer is, "let them (all the people suffering from the effects of the pollution) all file lawsuits in state/local courts"? If that wasn't working out before we had an EPA, why would it start working out now? And how would it be better/more efficient/an improvement to move from a condition of "pollution is limited" to "pollution is limited, but only after people file and win lawsuits"? I mean, I'm really trying to see how we'd be better off if you took away the EPA, but wanted to keep pollution restrictions in place by this other, far more elaborate and far less accessible means. Hey, if really you just don't want pollution restrictions at all, then let's talk about that, let's ask, would we be better off without pollution restrictions? Trying to say "no, the EPA is bad, but what they do is good and let's get to the same place through a complicated and lengthy process of local lawsuits"? Again, that don't make sense.
    - maratd 11y ago
      > If that wasn't working out before we had an EPA, why would it start working out now? What makes you think it wasn't working before? Those same corporations would shit a brick if they had to defend themselves from a 1000 lawsuits vs just one from the EPA. Everybody would have standing instead of just the EPA, because really everybody is getting fucked. You think they're complaining now? They'll go bankrupt if you get rid of the federal protection, which was my point.
      - Frondo 11y ago
        Ok, so we're agreed that pollution controls are a good idea. We're agreed that the basic functioning of the EPA is a good one. But instead of us citizens charging one government agency to do this specific job, you think it's going to work out better for us people to have to, as individuals, research and understand the issue enough to file lawsuits? That a bunch of regular folks, most of whom probably don't have a lot of cash lying around to file lawsuits, people who just own homes and work somewhere and whose community is now being polluted.. rather than use the specific tool of a government enforcer, the burden's on each of them to go file a bunch of separate lawsuits? And this outcome is better for them, and will lead to the same pollution restrictions they could get from the one agency doing its job? I mean, that's what it sounds like you're saying, but it just still doesn't make sense.

by maratd 11y ago

Frondo 11y ago

There's no competitive advantage to not polluting, or we wouldn't ever have needed an EPA in the first place! There's such an imbalance of power between employer and employee that there's no meaningful competitive advantage to a safe workplace; if employees really were all self-empowered free agents, and not scared and hungry people with families and children to support, we wouldn't have needed an OSHA in the first place! All the regulations the libertarians want to turn back, they all came about in response to the world working so imperfectly that it had to be changed with force of law. Undoing that, on the basis of a theory with absolutely no real-world evidence of working? That just doesn't make sense.

maratd 11y ago
> There's no competitive advantage to not polluting, or we wouldn't ever have needed an EPA in the first place! Why do you need the EPA again? My local government represents my locality. It can easily sue in civil court for any damage to the environment and use the resulting funds to make repairs. With the feds stepping in, makes this scenario much more complicated and difficult. They have jurisdiction. > There's such an imbalance of power between employer and employee > self-empowered free agents Let me posit that if you have a traditional employer, you are not a "self-empowered free agent". Ditch your employer. Thank the maker we're slowly moving toward that eventuality. > All the regulations the libertarians want to turn back, they all came about in response to the world working so imperfectly That's one possibility. Another is that "special interests" lobbied for those changes at which point the politician came up with a more pleasant justification for said regulations, sold them to the ignorant public, and now they're in place. Which do you think is more likely?
- Frondo 11y ago
  The EPA's a good example, I think, because it's the big businesses that continually lobby against it. Where are the big industrial players that sit back and laugh at how pollution restrictions are benefiting them? Because it seems like the big businesses always complain about the EPA as an emblem of government overreach, even though getting rid of it would be good for them and bad for everyone else, especially the people in the community suffering from the pollution! And your answer is, "let them (all the people suffering from the effects of the pollution) all file lawsuits in state/local courts"? If that wasn't working out before we had an EPA, why would it start working out now? And how would it be better/more efficient/an improvement to move from a condition of "pollution is limited" to "pollution is limited, but only after people file and win lawsuits"? I mean, I'm really trying to see how we'd be better off if you took away the EPA, but wanted to keep pollution restrictions in place by this other, far more elaborate and far less accessible means. Hey, if really you just don't want pollution restrictions at all, then let's talk about that, let's ask, would we be better off without pollution restrictions? Trying to say "no, the EPA is bad, but what they do is good and let's get to the same place through a complicated and lengthy process of local lawsuits"? Again, that don't make sense.
  - maratd 11y ago
    > If that wasn't working out before we had an EPA, why would it start working out now? What makes you think it wasn't working before? Those same corporations would shit a brick if they had to defend themselves from a 1000 lawsuits vs just one from the EPA. Everybody would have standing instead of just the EPA, because really everybody is getting fucked. You think they're complaining now? They'll go bankrupt if you get rid of the federal protection, which was my point.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      Ok, so we're agreed that pollution controls are a good idea. We're agreed that the basic functioning of the EPA is a good one. But instead of us citizens charging one government agency to do this specific job, you think it's going to work out better for us people to have to, as individuals, research and understand the issue enough to file lawsuits? That a bunch of regular folks, most of whom probably don't have a lot of cash lying around to file lawsuits, people who just own homes and work somewhere and whose community is now being polluted.. rather than use the specific tool of a government enforcer, the burden's on each of them to go file a bunch of separate lawsuits? And this outcome is better for them, and will lead to the same pollution restrictions they could get from the one agency doing its job? I mean, that's what it sounds like you're saying, but it just still doesn't make sense.