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It's absurd to think governments grew because of "community complaints". The rise of nation states happened precisely to benefit the megacorps that now exist -

by nvarsj 10y ago

It's absurd to think governments grew because of "community complaints". The rise of nation states happened precisely to benefit the megacorps that now exist - to support massive, centrally planned economies and subsidize megacorps that now rule the planet. The gov (or rather, the public, us) have every right to demand certain basic guarantees from these companies that benefit so much from public investment.

dmix 10y ago
So megacorps regulation = always bad, community-backed regulation = always good? I agree with you that large companies can have a significant influence of policy and legislation. And yes they definately contributed to the problem. But considering the standard approach to everything (including your own comment here) is that 'more centralized control is the solution' it's not surprising that corporations are playing the exact same game to their advantage. I'm questioning the value of using that approach as a default solution. With the exception of it being the very last resort rather than the go-to solution to every problem. Because the state is good at a few things but it many cases it's heavy handed, expensive, time consuming, and very slow to adapt to change. Regulation, policy, and agencies should only be used carefully and there should be a culture of constantly re-evaluating the necessity of programs/agencies/policies - which doesn't seem to happen. Once it's set up it stays, scope and legislation only grows in size, government employees are incredibly hard to fire, etc, etc, and that's how a nation-state grows into a massive unwieldly beast. It's a complicated problem no doubt with many sources. But the status quo of the modern nation-state is very dysfunctional. It's sad that people so passionitely defend it blindly on ideological grounds. Questioning the value of government as the solution to all things brings out people who defend it like a religion. Which is how it ends up functioning in places where it often doesn't belong or worse ends up contributing to societal problems. This same ideology is the reason why Facebook gets blamed every time there is something posted that makes people uncomfortable. Instead of the person who posts the content.
dredmorbius 10y ago
That's an exceptionally revisionist history.

by nvarsj 10y ago

dmix 10y ago

So megacorps regulation = always bad, community-backed regulation = always good? I agree with you that large companies can have a significant influence of policy and legislation. And yes they definately contributed to the problem. But considering the standard approach to everything (including your own comment here) is that 'more centralized control is the solution' it's not surprising that corporations are playing the exact same game to their advantage. I'm questioning the value of using that approach as a default solution. With the exception of it being the very last resort rather than the go-to solution to every problem. Because the state is good at a few things but it many cases it's heavy handed, expensive, time consuming, and very slow to adapt to change. Regulation, policy, and agencies should only be used carefully and there should be a culture of constantly re-evaluating the necessity of programs/agencies/policies - which doesn't seem to happen. Once it's set up it stays, scope and legislation only grows in size, government employees are incredibly hard to fire, etc, etc, and that's how a nation-state grows into a massive unwieldly beast. It's a complicated problem no doubt with many sources. But the status quo of the modern nation-state is very dysfunctional. It's sad that people so passionitely defend it blindly on ideological grounds. Questioning the value of government as the solution to all things brings out people who defend it like a religion. Which is how it ends up functioning in places where it often doesn't belong or worse ends up contributing to societal problems. This same ideology is the reason why Facebook gets blamed every time there is something posted that makes people uncomfortable. Instead of the person who posts the content.

dredmorbius 10y ago

That's an exceptionally revisionist history.