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The mainstream liberal opinion is that corporations should a) be regulated by a sufficiently funded independent government agency, b) pay taxes, and c) be requi

The mainstream liberal opinion is that corporations should a) be regulated by a sufficiently funded independent government agency, b) pay taxes, and c) be required to limit contributions or at least disclose campaign expenditures The only people advocating the destruction of corporations are actual anarchists and anarcho-communists. A large chunk of the right believes in the wholesale destruction of government agencies- they don't think EPA should even exist. But the equivalent opinion on the left has no political power at all. The leftiest member of Congress is not calling for a Worker's Revolution.

tdhoot 8y ago
The equivalent opinion of "disband one agency" is not a "Worker's Revolution", it's "disband one corporation/industry", and there are plenty of those opinions on the left (tech monopolies, oil/gas, defense contractors, etc.) The equivalent argument to a Worker's Revolution on the right would be the disbanding of the Federal government or a reduction to independence-day levels. That opinion does not exist in Congress either.
- hobs 8y ago
  I'd disagree given "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." is the most famous Grover Norquist quote, and he spent a good portion of his life towards doing this very thing.
- roywiggins 8y ago
  Saying corporations should be broken up is not the same as saying there should be no corporations. The former is just old-fashioned antitrust and yeah, definitely has some sway on the left. A split-up Google just makes bunch of corporations; abolishing tech corporations entirely and taking them over as a public utility or worker's cooperative is what I'm getting at. "This particular corporation is too big" is a mainstream-but-lefty opinion; "this corporation should be expropriated and owned by the public" is not a mainstream opinion. Steve Bannon is on record as wanting to dismantle the "administrative state", he held the ear of the President for a while. The head of the CFPB doesn't think the CFPB should exist. Paul Ryan wants to privatise Social Security. "Shrink government enough to drown it in a bathtub" is a Grover Norquist quote. They may not want to roll back the entire government to Independence Day but they do want to take it back to the 19th century if it means they can cut taxes. They don't just want less regulation; they want the feds to get out of the business of regulating industry at all.
  - tdhoot 8y ago
    I'm not sure if we're speaking past each other, but it seems we're both making the same point. The right is not advocating for the complete destruction of the Government. The left is not advocating for the removal of corporations as a legal entity. Those two positions are equivalent and neither side has cachet at the moment. The destruction of certain government agencies is closer to the breakup of certain corporations or industries than it is to the right-equivalent of a Worker's Revolution.
    - roywiggins 8y ago
      I guess I'm equating "oil corporations should not exist" with "oil corporations should not be regulated by the feds". The latter seems to have some sway with the current administration, see: https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-drain-the-swamp-scott-angelle.html https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/john-oliver-last-week-toni... This guy does not seem worried that he might look a bit cozy with the industry he is supposedly regulating; he's practically asking the industry to ask him for leniency. There are countries with state oil companies and nobody is advocating for that; but there seems to be people advocating for the total abdication of regulation of oil companies. If there's a continuum between "state run" and "fully unregulated", the "fully unregulated" side seems to have a certain amount of sway whereas the other end doesn't.
    - specialist 8y ago
      "The right is not advocating for the complete destruction of the Government." Government is not the solution, it is the problem. -- Ronald Reagan. Shrink government so that it can be drowned in a bathtub. -- Grover Nordquist.
- mikeash 8y ago
  That "corporation/industry" combination is bizarre. Those are very different things. Disbanding a corporation means others will fill in. Disbanding an entire industry is basically unheard of and would be incredibly disruptive. Consider the current call on the left to abolish ICE. The right paints this as meaning "abolish the border patrol" but that's not what it actually means. The call is to either pass the responsibilities to other agencies, or create a new agency. That would be like disbanding a corporation. Now consider the calls on the right to abolish the EPA. The intent is not that the EPA's responsibilities get picked up by other agencies or passed to a new agency. The intent is that those responsibilities cease. I don't see any movement to disband the industries you mention. The closest would be oil/gas, and even then the movement is not to disband them, but to regulate them so that they actually bear the costs of the damage they cause, and let the market take its natural course from there.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  >The equivalent argument to a Worker's Revolution on the right would be the disbanding of the Federal government or a reduction to independence-day levels. That opinion does not exist in Congress either. Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) until 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Pau...
yesenadam 8y ago
Well said. Re leftiest members of Congress - for one thing, they won't be very lefty as long as having a religion is a virtual requirement: "The only open atheist in congressional history was California Democrat Pete Stark, who spent three decades in Congress before admitting to his lack of faith" https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-many-openly-atheist-politicians-are-there-in-america https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-many-open...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > for one thing, they won't be very lefty as long as being a christian is a virtual requirement The idea that there aren't any very lefty Christians is...well, not entirely surprising given the logb-standing “left v religion” media narrative the US right spent so many decades fostering, but also not at all consistent with reality. Consider, e.g., Liberation Theology.
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    Yes, you're right. Or the radical priests of Latin America. MLK etc. Well, there doesn't seem much of that in the US these days. Jim Jones may have had an effect - he was a model left christian most of his career apparently.
    - specialist 8y ago
      I have no idea what you're talking about. Us liberal Christians outnumber the others, we're more concerned about the teachings of Christ (cite The Beatitudes) over accumulating power or fighting culture wars, we consider it distasteful to push our beliefs onto others, and we're not organized politically and never will be.
      - yesenadam 8y ago
        Hi there! (Ah sorry, I don't know what I'm talking about either.) Well, nice to meet/hear from you. [Anecdata] Actually..I'm in rather atheist Australia, hardly met any christians here my whole life. But the last 10 years have made a lot of friends online - who are almost all christians - mostly catholic, but not all - in Latin America, the Philippines, Africa. At least, they live in very christian worlds, and are I suppose closer to what you describe than the right-wing uh....than the christianity mostly seen in the mainstream media. They're just lovely people. :-)
faizshah 8y ago
Maybe in the realm of pedantry but: Getting rid of corporations is more generally a socialist idea. Anarchists advocate getting rid of unjust hierarchy in general. Although this is somewhat meaningless in this context since large scale worker cooperatives like the Mondragon Corporation are not (usually) considered to be "bad" organizations by socialists including anarchists. By the way, if you are confused how anarchism could be a type of socialism check out this explanation: https://medium.com/anarchist-faq/a-1-4-83ba7fe75e15 https://medium.com/anarchist-faq/a-1-4-83ba7fe75e15
mikeash 8y ago
Lest anyone think that last paragraph is hyperbole, note that the current head of the Department of Energy had previously stated that he wanted to abolish it. This was, of course, before he found out what it did (!), which occurred after he took the job (!!). (In case anyone doesn't realize how ridiculous this is, the DoE is responsible for, among other things, the production and maintenance of the US's nuclear arsenal.)
- roywiggins 8y ago
  And the Secretary of Education has spent her entire career advocating for spending government money on privately run charter schools. And there's no small number of people on the right who believe that the Department of Education should be disbanded entirely, since they don't believe in any federal involvement in public schooling at all; they barely want state involvement (see: charter schools).
- gwright 8y ago
  The Department of Energy was only created in 1977. Eliminating the department isn't the same thing as discarding its functions en masse. The more interesting discussion would be about the particular motivations for the creation and proposed dissolution of the department, rather than a cursory dismissal of the idea.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    There's only two possibilities: either a given function is discarded, or it's reassigned. Which did Rick Perry want to do? Well, given that he didn't know what those functions were, I don't see how he possibly could have had any actual plan for reassigning them. Wanting to abolish the DoE could be sensible if done with thought. But wanting to abolish it while also not having a clue about what it does is just crazypants. “In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.” - Actual quote by the current head of the DoE.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago

tdhoot 8y ago

The equivalent opinion of "disband one agency" is not a "Worker's Revolution", it's "disband one corporation/industry", and there are plenty of those opinions on the left (tech monopolies, oil/gas, defense contractors, etc.) The equivalent argument to a Worker's Revolution on the right would be the disbanding of the Federal government or a reduction to independence-day levels. That opinion does not exist in Congress either.

hobs 8y ago
I'd disagree given "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." is the most famous Grover Norquist quote, and he spent a good portion of his life towards doing this very thing.
roywiggins 8y ago
Saying corporations should be broken up is not the same as saying there should be no corporations. The former is just old-fashioned antitrust and yeah, definitely has some sway on the left. A split-up Google just makes bunch of corporations; abolishing tech corporations entirely and taking them over as a public utility or worker's cooperative is what I'm getting at. "This particular corporation is too big" is a mainstream-but-lefty opinion; "this corporation should be expropriated and owned by the public" is not a mainstream opinion. Steve Bannon is on record as wanting to dismantle the "administrative state", he held the ear of the President for a while. The head of the CFPB doesn't think the CFPB should exist. Paul Ryan wants to privatise Social Security. "Shrink government enough to drown it in a bathtub" is a Grover Norquist quote. They may not want to roll back the entire government to Independence Day but they do want to take it back to the 19th century if it means they can cut taxes. They don't just want less regulation; they want the feds to get out of the business of regulating industry at all.
- tdhoot 8y ago
  I'm not sure if we're speaking past each other, but it seems we're both making the same point. The right is not advocating for the complete destruction of the Government. The left is not advocating for the removal of corporations as a legal entity. Those two positions are equivalent and neither side has cachet at the moment. The destruction of certain government agencies is closer to the breakup of certain corporations or industries than it is to the right-equivalent of a Worker's Revolution.
  - roywiggins 8y ago
    I guess I'm equating "oil corporations should not exist" with "oil corporations should not be regulated by the feds". The latter seems to have some sway with the current administration, see: https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-drain-the-swamp-scott-angelle.html https://slate.com/culture/2018/11/john-oliver-last-week-toni... This guy does not seem worried that he might look a bit cozy with the industry he is supposedly regulating; he's practically asking the industry to ask him for leniency. There are countries with state oil companies and nobody is advocating for that; but there seems to be people advocating for the total abdication of regulation of oil companies. If there's a continuum between "state run" and "fully unregulated", the "fully unregulated" side seems to have a certain amount of sway whereas the other end doesn't.
  - specialist 8y ago
    "The right is not advocating for the complete destruction of the Government." Government is not the solution, it is the problem. -- Ronald Reagan. Shrink government so that it can be drowned in a bathtub. -- Grover Nordquist.
mikeash 8y ago
That "corporation/industry" combination is bizarre. Those are very different things. Disbanding a corporation means others will fill in. Disbanding an entire industry is basically unheard of and would be incredibly disruptive. Consider the current call on the left to abolish ICE. The right paints this as meaning "abolish the border patrol" but that's not what it actually means. The call is to either pass the responsibilities to other agencies, or create a new agency. That would be like disbanding a corporation. Now consider the calls on the right to abolish the EPA. The intent is not that the EPA's responsibilities get picked up by other agencies or passed to a new agency. The intent is that those responsibilities cease. I don't see any movement to disband the industries you mention. The closest would be oil/gas, and even then the movement is not to disband them, but to regulate them so that they actually bear the costs of the damage they cause, and let the market take its natural course from there.
jonathankoren 8y ago
>The equivalent argument to a Worker's Revolution on the right would be the disbanding of the Federal government or a reduction to independence-day levels. That opinion does not exist in Congress either. Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) until 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Pau...

yesenadam 8y ago

Well said. Re leftiest members of Congress - for one thing, they won't be very lefty as long as having a religion is a virtual requirement: "The only open atheist in congressional history was California Democrat Pete Stark, who spent three decades in Congress before admitting to his lack of faith" https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-many-openly-atheist-politicians-are-there-in-america https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-many-open...

dragonwriter 8y ago
> for one thing, they won't be very lefty as long as being a christian is a virtual requirement The idea that there aren't any very lefty Christians is...well, not entirely surprising given the logb-standing “left v religion” media narrative the US right spent so many decades fostering, but also not at all consistent with reality. Consider, e.g., Liberation Theology.
- yesenadam 8y ago
  Yes, you're right. Or the radical priests of Latin America. MLK etc. Well, there doesn't seem much of that in the US these days. Jim Jones may have had an effect - he was a model left christian most of his career apparently.
  - specialist 8y ago
    I have no idea what you're talking about. Us liberal Christians outnumber the others, we're more concerned about the teachings of Christ (cite The Beatitudes) over accumulating power or fighting culture wars, we consider it distasteful to push our beliefs onto others, and we're not organized politically and never will be.
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      Hi there! (Ah sorry, I don't know what I'm talking about either.) Well, nice to meet/hear from you. [Anecdata] Actually..I'm in rather atheist Australia, hardly met any christians here my whole life. But the last 10 years have made a lot of friends online - who are almost all christians - mostly catholic, but not all - in Latin America, the Philippines, Africa. At least, they live in very christian worlds, and are I suppose closer to what you describe than the right-wing uh....than the christianity mostly seen in the mainstream media. They're just lovely people. :-)

faizshah 8y ago

Maybe in the realm of pedantry but: Getting rid of corporations is more generally a socialist idea. Anarchists advocate getting rid of unjust hierarchy in general. Although this is somewhat meaningless in this context since large scale worker cooperatives like the Mondragon Corporation are not (usually) considered to be "bad" organizations by socialists including anarchists. By the way, if you are confused how anarchism could be a type of socialism check out this explanation: https://medium.com/anarchist-faq/a-1-4-83ba7fe75e15 https://medium.com/anarchist-faq/a-1-4-83ba7fe75e15

mikeash 8y ago

Lest anyone think that last paragraph is hyperbole, note that the current head of the Department of Energy had previously stated that he wanted to abolish it. This was, of course, before he found out what it did (!), which occurred after he took the job (!!). (In case anyone doesn't realize how ridiculous this is, the DoE is responsible for, among other things, the production and maintenance of the US's nuclear arsenal.)

roywiggins 8y ago
And the Secretary of Education has spent her entire career advocating for spending government money on privately run charter schools. And there's no small number of people on the right who believe that the Department of Education should be disbanded entirely, since they don't believe in any federal involvement in public schooling at all; they barely want state involvement (see: charter schools).
gwright 8y ago
The Department of Energy was only created in 1977. Eliminating the department isn't the same thing as discarding its functions en masse. The more interesting discussion would be about the particular motivations for the creation and proposed dissolution of the department, rather than a cursory dismissal of the idea.
- mikeash 8y ago
  There's only two possibilities: either a given function is discarded, or it's reassigned. Which did Rick Perry want to do? Well, given that he didn't know what those functions were, I don't see how he possibly could have had any actual plan for reassigning them. Wanting to abolish the DoE could be sensible if done with thought. But wanting to abolish it while also not having a clue about what it does is just crazypants. “In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination.” - Actual quote by the current head of the DoE.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago