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Why have laws in business at all? You don't like it don't do business. Perhaps because we don't like the idea that the strongest should always get his way? Alth

by harry8 8y ago

Why have laws in business at all? You don't like it don't do business. Perhaps because we don't like the idea that the strongest should always get his way? Although I totally take your point that it is utterly fatuous to suggest shareholders are going to hold management to account on the general theme of being ethical. Total deregulation is every bit the same silly extreme as a command economy and should be treated with the same withering contempt. The question should always be "Is this regulation effective in making things better for more people over the long term." If that answer is now, we have a regulation that should go. Deregulation extremists somehow take the exact opposite point of view when it comes to property rights, regulations that protect them. And of course every single large company shouting de-regulation is really engaged in a massive amount of regulatory capture. Those regulations need to go and we need to fight back in a big way on that. Variations on that theme are why Bernie and Donald are so much more popular than Hilary and Jeb. Still no progress. Anyway are these tech billionaires able to command super-voting rights with their stakes because they're so great and wise and wonderful? Or is it because they've secured a beachhead that commands a lot of economic rent and that beachhead gives them the power and strength to get their way. I don't find Zuck super impressive as a person, strategist or engineer. But hey he fought off google trying to muscle into his beach head so he must be amazing unless he, um, "has the high ground" OB1 stye. Did Rupert Murdoch push the super voting rights regulations through so he could keep total family control of news ltd & fox?

SamReidHughes 8y ago
> The question should always be "Is this regulation effective in making things better for more people over the long term." That's the Communist worldview. Complete utilitarian totalitarian morality.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > If you care about other people, that’s now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” for some wild reason. I mean, it’s actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public. -- Noam Chomsky
  - harry8 8y ago
    The total arrogance of Chomsky on display. He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. Didn't the Soviet union go well? Thanks for your input Noam!
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      > He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. Like making this hit job, and then slinking away not responding to me? Prove me wrong. > As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. If you don't care about other people, you do by definition. > Didn't the Soviet union go well? What does that have do with anything he said? > Thanks for your input Noam! All your comment is just padding playing cute. All you're saying is it rubbed you the wrong way but you got nothing.
      - harry8 8y ago
        I'm not sure the tone of this is likely to be productive. Obviously "proving wrong" is a non-starter in such a debate. Nonetheless... It's a reasonable position for a person to take that the state should stay out of decisions made for oneself and family as far as it's practicable. I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste, returning a small fraction of it to me with a decision made on what they consider good for my family. (Maybe I'm wrong there, that's my right, and yours, to be wrong about such matters as pertain to yourself and your family). Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. Just as espousing socialism does not necessarily mean one is selfless. Incredibly selfish people will exist in both camps. Those who disagree with me (of whom some are socialist) are capable of having merit as people and could be warm, lovely caring, empathetic people, even if that's clearly not all of them. Noam has no empathy for me, I lack merit for disagreeing with his brand of socialism in his eyes. I can live with it. I think he's arrogant. He can probably live with that too fwiw...
- harry8 8y ago
  Property rights are a regulation justified on this basis. Property rights are not usually associated with communism and totalitarianism. But hey, without a utilitarian justification for regulation we do still have two choices. Theocracy is one, anarchy is the other. I'm as against both of those as i am against communism & fascism. It's wonderfully radical to be so extreme as to be against property rights or claim that Jesus had teachings on the principle.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    You can justify property rights and all sorts of business regulations with concepts of fairness and justice.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 > There are undoubtedly myriad intellectual, psychological, and political sources for our inaction, but I cannot help thinking that the influence of Ayn Rand, the Russian émigré novelist, may have played a role. Rand’s disquisitions on the “virtue of selfishness” and unbridled capitalism are admired by many American politicians and economists—Paul Ryan, Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, Andrew Puzder, and Donald Trump, among them. Trump, who has called “The Fountainhead” his favorite book, said that the novel “relates to business and beauty and life and inner emotions. That book relates to . . . everything.” Long after Rand’s death, in 1982, the libertarian gospel of the novel continues to sway our politics: Government is bad. Solidarity is a trap. Taxes are theft.
closeparen 8y ago
One could argue Facebook’s behavior is less rapacious than it would have been with accountability to the public market.

by harry8 8y ago

SamReidHughes 8y ago

> The question should always be "Is this regulation effective in making things better for more people over the long term." That's the Communist worldview. Complete utilitarian totalitarian morality.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
> If you care about other people, that’s now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” for some wild reason. I mean, it’s actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public. -- Noam Chomsky
- harry8 8y ago
  The total arrogance of Chomsky on display. He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. Didn't the Soviet union go well? Thanks for your input Noam!
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. Like making this hit job, and then slinking away not responding to me? Prove me wrong. > As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. If you don't care about other people, you do by definition. > Didn't the Soviet union go well? What does that have do with anything he said? > Thanks for your input Noam! All your comment is just padding playing cute. All you're saying is it rubbed you the wrong way but you got nothing.
    - harry8 8y ago
      I'm not sure the tone of this is likely to be productive. Obviously "proving wrong" is a non-starter in such a debate. Nonetheless... It's a reasonable position for a person to take that the state should stay out of decisions made for oneself and family as far as it's practicable. I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste, returning a small fraction of it to me with a decision made on what they consider good for my family. (Maybe I'm wrong there, that's my right, and yours, to be wrong about such matters as pertain to yourself and your family). Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. Just as espousing socialism does not necessarily mean one is selfless. Incredibly selfish people will exist in both camps. Those who disagree with me (of whom some are socialist) are capable of having merit as people and could be warm, lovely caring, empathetic people, even if that's clearly not all of them. Noam has no empathy for me, I lack merit for disagreeing with his brand of socialism in his eyes. I can live with it. I think he's arrogant. He can probably live with that too fwiw...
harry8 8y ago
Property rights are a regulation justified on this basis. Property rights are not usually associated with communism and totalitarianism. But hey, without a utilitarian justification for regulation we do still have two choices. Theocracy is one, anarchy is the other. I'm as against both of those as i am against communism & fascism. It's wonderfully radical to be so extreme as to be against property rights or claim that Jesus had teachings on the principle.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  You can justify property rights and all sorts of business regulations with concepts of fairness and justice.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 > There are undoubtedly myriad intellectual, psychological, and political sources for our inaction, but I cannot help thinking that the influence of Ayn Rand, the Russian émigré novelist, may have played a role. Rand’s disquisitions on the “virtue of selfishness” and unbridled capitalism are admired by many American politicians and economists—Paul Ryan, Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, Andrew Puzder, and Donald Trump, among them. Trump, who has called “The Fountainhead” his favorite book, said that the novel “relates to business and beauty and life and inner emotions. That book relates to . . . everything.” Long after Rand’s death, in 1982, the libertarian gospel of the novel continues to sway our politics: Government is bad. Solidarity is a trap. Taxes are theft.

closeparen 8y ago

One could argue Facebook’s behavior is less rapacious than it would have been with accountability to the public market.