4 ms·

I have a lot more faith in government—which has proven to be democratic, on occasion—than corporations which offer no levers of consumer control, and lie consta

by rexpop 8y ago

I have a lot more faith in government—which has proven to be democratic, on occasion—than corporations which offer no levers of consumer control, and lie constantly.

toasterlovin 8y ago
A few words in favor of corporations: at least they can go out of business and be replaced by something else.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Yeah, or just declare bankruptcy and rebrand. So long Cambridge Analytica! Oh hello Emeradata, gosh you seem so familiar. Oh well, I’m just going to putter off in my VW TDi and smoke a lovely Altria cigarette.
  - rexpop 8y ago
    These are great examples of how Capital survives PR disasters, and the implosion of one legally defined corporate body is as irrelevant to tracing the consolidation of economic power as a change of clothes is to the tracking of an cheating spouse: colorful circumstantial evidence of their treachery, but a distraction from the bigger picture.
- rexpop 8y ago
  This is historically true, and while it's certainly the case that revolutions are usually bloody (and therefore not worth implementing), I am afraid corporations will not go out of business. What I mean to say is that, by the end of my lifetime, it will no longer be the case that "corporations go out of business" if, instead, the tenure of the legally defined corporate entity becomes meaningless in a frothy sea of restructures, acquisitions, and spin-outs. What we'll see instead are long-lived monopolies-in-all-but-name. I think we are seeing this now. An individual factory may go offline, but "big food" will not. Edit: And this is the case I expect regardless of which post-capitalist scenario we face: either a) neoreactionary feudalism or b) socialist collectivization. In either scenario, the corps don't go out of business.
ianai 8y ago
The government also has some checks and balances. They don’t always work to my expectation, but they function well enough to be vastly preferable to alternatives.
pmoriarty 8y ago
"I have a lot more faith in government--which has proven to be democratic, on occasion--than corporations which offer no levers of consumer control, and lie constantly." They're not two cleanly separable entities. Industry executives go in to government all the time (often to oversee the regulation of the industries they came from), and when politicians leave office they frequently get hired in to extremely high paying jobs at the very companies they regulated or awarded contracts to while in office. Former politicians also frequently get hired by corporations to become lobbyists, because they know the system and have a lot of connections in government. Corporations and government scratch each other's backs so much that it's a wonder there's any effective regulation, consumer protection, or health and safety protections left.
- rexpop 8y ago
  Yeah, everything you're saying is true. I'm comfortable modeling all human endeavors on a gradient from authoritarian to democratic. I'm currently very vexed with my elected representatives for spending my thousands of tax dollars on an invasion of Venezuela, while excusing Exxon's billions in taxes. I recognize that this is partly facilitated by Exxon's former CEO manipulating Venezuelan politics with black ops while holding the position of Secretary of State. So, far be it from me to proclaim the purity of our governance. https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-believe-in-the-u-s-agenda-in-venezuela-haiti-and-egypt/ https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-bel... https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/20/everyone-has-fallen-lies-about-venezuela https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/20/everyone-has-f...

by rexpop 8y ago

I have a lot more faith in government—which has proven to be democratic, on occasion—than corporations which offer no levers of consumer control, and lie constantly.

toasterlovin 8y ago

A few words in favor of corporations: at least they can go out of business and be replaced by something else.

gotocake 8y ago
Yeah, or just declare bankruptcy and rebrand. So long Cambridge Analytica! Oh hello Emeradata, gosh you seem so familiar. Oh well, I’m just going to putter off in my VW TDi and smoke a lovely Altria cigarette.
- rexpop 8y ago
  These are great examples of how Capital survives PR disasters, and the implosion of one legally defined corporate body is as irrelevant to tracing the consolidation of economic power as a change of clothes is to the tracking of an cheating spouse: colorful circumstantial evidence of their treachery, but a distraction from the bigger picture.
rexpop 8y ago
This is historically true, and while it's certainly the case that revolutions are usually bloody (and therefore not worth implementing), I am afraid corporations will not go out of business. What I mean to say is that, by the end of my lifetime, it will no longer be the case that "corporations go out of business" if, instead, the tenure of the legally defined corporate entity becomes meaningless in a frothy sea of restructures, acquisitions, and spin-outs. What we'll see instead are long-lived monopolies-in-all-but-name. I think we are seeing this now. An individual factory may go offline, but "big food" will not. Edit: And this is the case I expect regardless of which post-capitalist scenario we face: either a) neoreactionary feudalism or b) socialist collectivization. In either scenario, the corps don't go out of business.

ianai 8y ago

The government also has some checks and balances. They don’t always work to my expectation, but they function well enough to be vastly preferable to alternatives.

pmoriarty 8y ago

"I have a lot more faith in government--which has proven to be democratic, on occasion--than corporations which offer no levers of consumer control, and lie constantly." They're not two cleanly separable entities. Industry executives go in to government all the time (often to oversee the regulation of the industries they came from), and when politicians leave office they frequently get hired in to extremely high paying jobs at the very companies they regulated or awarded contracts to while in office. Former politicians also frequently get hired by corporations to become lobbyists, because they know the system and have a lot of connections in government. Corporations and government scratch each other's backs so much that it's a wonder there's any effective regulation, consumer protection, or health and safety protections left.

rexpop 8y ago
Yeah, everything you're saying is true. I'm comfortable modeling all human endeavors on a gradient from authoritarian to democratic. I'm currently very vexed with my elected representatives for spending my thousands of tax dollars on an invasion of Venezuela, while excusing Exxon's billions in taxes. I recognize that this is partly facilitated by Exxon's former CEO manipulating Venezuelan politics with black ops while holding the position of Secretary of State. So, far be it from me to proclaim the purity of our governance. https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-believe-in-the-u-s-agenda-in-venezuela-haiti-and-egypt/ https://theintercept.com/2019/02/20/regime-change-we-can-bel... https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/20/everyone-has-fallen-lies-about-venezuela https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/02/20/everyone-has-f...