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Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the cl
by ralusek 7y ago
Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that.
I'd also like to mention that certain entities operating outside of the state are precisely the sort of thing that can prevent the sort of tyranny that Germany enacted during the 20th century. Sometimes, and often, the entity capable of "regulating" is the tyranny. Imagine if Germany had had the capability to prevent payments to Jews, or track which households were spending more on food than they should and were likely harboring enemies of the state. I'm not saying Facebook needs to be the entity that does it, but monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny.
I actually think this highlights one of the fundamental differences between Western liberalism and German schools of thought. Germany tends to fall back on the central authority, whereas liberalism thinks that the central authority is the single most corruptible attack vector.
- ricardobeat 7y ago> monetary systems operating outside of the state could be argued to be one of the strongest weapons against tyranny This is in direct contradiction to your previous paragraph, unless such a system is inherently decentralized, and not controlled by a single entity (such as FB).
- ralusek 7y agoFacebook would already make the situation into 2 competing entities, as the state will always be the other.
- lol768 7y ago> Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that. I'm not sure a union with a democratically elected parliament is comparable to a social media corporation which answers to its shareholders?
- denton-scratch 7y agoWhy can other people not make that comparison? You seem to be doing just that - A has a democratically elected parliament B answers to its shareholders
- lol768 7y agoI'm pointing out it's just not relevant to the conversation. They're too different to meaningfully (in good faith) bring up as a discussion point. The original comparison read very much as whataboutism to me.