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This is an extremely rosey view of the government. Private interest groups aren’t bombing people after all. There are a ton of amoral ties to how your taxes are

This is an extremely rosey view of the government. Private interest groups aren’t bombing people after all. There are a ton of amoral ties to how your taxes are spent.

pmoriarty 7y ago
The government and corporations can not be clearly separated. People from the one go to work for the other regularly[1], often as a reward for serving one-another's interests. They constantly scratch each other's backs, such as politicians awarding fat contracts to corporations and then being rewarded with a high paying job at the same corporation when they retire, or just outright bribery in a variety of forms. Governments also regularly hire highly placed executive from corporations to regulate industries. History is full of examples of the military used to protect private (including corporate) interests, which are often seen by the ruling class as virtually synonymous with national interests. Protecting oil in the Middle East is one obvious example, but so is protecting banana corporations in South America, nevermind older examples such as using the military for colonialism and to further the slave trade. Media corporations have been highly complicit in provoking and defending war. The newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was infamous for boasting for his paper's ability to start wars, saying, "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." Later media magnates (like Fox News' Rupert Murdoch) and outlets have been no less influential. Private individuals who've made their fortunes in corporations, like the Koch brothers and Peter Thiel, can also have an enormous influence on politics and the government through their donation, advocacy, and having the ear of powerful politicians. The military-industrial complex is yet another good example where corporations and governments are deeply intertwined, to the point of corporate interests having massive influence on both domestic and national security policy. It is a truism that political representatives in many states can't vote against military spending for fear of getting kicked out of office by their constituency, who depends on this military spending for their jobs (and their profits). There's endless corruption, bribes, billions of dollars going "missing", and kickbacks in the military as well, to the benefit of private individuals and corporations. Many politicians also own a lot of stock in military contractors and companies like Halliburton which benefit from both military spending and then reconstruction spending after the wars they authorize. This is yet another massive conflict of interest. So when you favor corporations over governments, don't be so sure they're not two heads of the same beast. [1] - Trump himself is probably the most famous current example, since he's top corporate executive and business owner at the pinnacle of political power in the US while having massive conflicts of interest between his economic and corporate interests and those of his political office, but this happens all throughout government in every administration (though usually not quite so brazenly).
ianai 7y ago
This is the problem. People are so ready to believe government is hopelessly corrupt that they assume all aspects of it must be evil and should be taken away or “cancelled.” There are actual agencies that fight, deter/avoid, and persecute corruption within the government. But people believe the worst so they’ve accepted the worst behavior from government. This should be a moment where people learn how actual government agencies work and what exist. Like this https://www.oge.gov/ https://www.oge.gov/ For decades, the US government has been a shining example of republican democracy with actual oversight and minimal corruption.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  I believe in the old idiom, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The whole reason I want government to be small is because I know that the bigger and more powerful it gets, the more corrupt it will get. The more unwieldy it is to change. The U.S. government has tons of corruption. And we've seen that in recent years with the CIA and the FBI, with the spying, and mass data collection. You look at how the U.S. government treats Assange and Snowden and tell me they aren't corrupt. The fake Russiagate scandal was built on lies forged by our own intelligence agencies. The Iraq war was supposed to be based on WMDs. I could go on and on...but you've got to be naive to call the U.S. government corruption-free or anything close to it.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  You say “believe” as if people can’t see the corruption and wars with their own eyes. It’s all there out in the open, you can see it yourself. > There are actual agencies that fight, deter/avoid, and persecute corruption within the government. They are doing a terrible job since our government is corrupt from top to bottom. [edit] There’s a really good comment to the parent by chrisco255 that was flagged for some reason. It says: > I believe in the old idiom, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The whole reason I want government to be small is because I know that the bigger and more powerful it gets, the more corrupt it will get. The more unwieldy it is to change. > The U.S. government has tons of corruption. And we've seen that in recent years with the CIA and the FBI, with the spying, and mass data collection. You look at how the U.S. government treats Assange and Snowden and tell me they aren't corrupt. The fake Russiagate scandal was built on lies forged by our own intelligence agencies. The Iraq war was supposed to be based on WMDs. I could go on and on...but you've got to be naive to call the U.S. government corruption-free or anything close to it.
fzeroracer 7y ago
I assume you are not familiar with the various actions Nestle has taken in order to ensure their hegemony over chocolate production? Corporations benefit plenty from war and famine. Some of their actions are more overt than others. If corporations were allowed to force people to work at gunpoint, make no mistake: They absolutely would. In some parts of the world, they just do so by integrating themselves deeply into the local governments. Then those corporations can point towards the big bad government as being the reason why they employed slave labor, while walking away all the richer.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Corporations are definitely also moral hazards in many cases. But even when they profit from war, I think it's some form of government or government-like agency that's actually killing people. I'm not saying corporations should be trusted, I'm saying that the government is far worse than any corporation in terms of corruption and coming with "ties" to how your money is spent.
- smabie 7y ago
  Maybe you should enlighten us all about the evils of the Nestle corporation then? Just saying stuff and not following up reflects more poorly on you than the parent poster.

This is an extremely rosey view of the government. Private interest groups aren’t bombing people after all. There are a ton of amoral ties to how your taxes are spent.

pmoriarty 7y ago

The government and corporations can not be clearly separated. People from the one go to work for the other regularly[1], often as a reward for serving one-another's interests. They constantly scratch each other's backs, such as politicians awarding fat contracts to corporations and then being rewarded with a high paying job at the same corporation when they retire, or just outright bribery in a variety of forms. Governments also regularly hire highly placed executive from corporations to regulate industries. History is full of examples of the military used to protect private (including corporate) interests, which are often seen by the ruling class as virtually synonymous with national interests. Protecting oil in the Middle East is one obvious example, but so is protecting banana corporations in South America, nevermind older examples such as using the military for colonialism and to further the slave trade. Media corporations have been highly complicit in provoking and defending war. The newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was infamous for boasting for his paper's ability to start wars, saying, "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." Later media magnates (like Fox News' Rupert Murdoch) and outlets have been no less influential. Private individuals who've made their fortunes in corporations, like the Koch brothers and Peter Thiel, can also have an enormous influence on politics and the government through their donation, advocacy, and having the ear of powerful politicians. The military-industrial complex is yet another good example where corporations and governments are deeply intertwined, to the point of corporate interests having massive influence on both domestic and national security policy. It is a truism that political representatives in many states can't vote against military spending for fear of getting kicked out of office by their constituency, who depends on this military spending for their jobs (and their profits). There's endless corruption, bribes, billions of dollars going "missing", and kickbacks in the military as well, to the benefit of private individuals and corporations. Many politicians also own a lot of stock in military contractors and companies like Halliburton which benefit from both military spending and then reconstruction spending after the wars they authorize. This is yet another massive conflict of interest. So when you favor corporations over governments, don't be so sure they're not two heads of the same beast. [1] - Trump himself is probably the most famous current example, since he's top corporate executive and business owner at the pinnacle of political power in the US while having massive conflicts of interest between his economic and corporate interests and those of his political office, but this happens all throughout government in every administration (though usually not quite so brazenly).

ianai 7y ago

This is the problem. People are so ready to believe government is hopelessly corrupt that they assume all aspects of it must be evil and should be taken away or “cancelled.” There are actual agencies that fight, deter/avoid, and persecute corruption within the government. But people believe the worst so they’ve accepted the worst behavior from government. This should be a moment where people learn how actual government agencies work and what exist. Like this https://www.oge.gov/ https://www.oge.gov/ For decades, the US government has been a shining example of republican democracy with actual oversight and minimal corruption.

chrisco255 7y ago
I believe in the old idiom, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The whole reason I want government to be small is because I know that the bigger and more powerful it gets, the more corrupt it will get. The more unwieldy it is to change. The U.S. government has tons of corruption. And we've seen that in recent years with the CIA and the FBI, with the spying, and mass data collection. You look at how the U.S. government treats Assange and Snowden and tell me they aren't corrupt. The fake Russiagate scandal was built on lies forged by our own intelligence agencies. The Iraq war was supposed to be based on WMDs. I could go on and on...but you've got to be naive to call the U.S. government corruption-free or anything close to it.
malvosenior 7y ago
You say “believe” as if people can’t see the corruption and wars with their own eyes. It’s all there out in the open, you can see it yourself. > There are actual agencies that fight, deter/avoid, and persecute corruption within the government. They are doing a terrible job since our government is corrupt from top to bottom. [edit] There’s a really good comment to the parent by chrisco255 that was flagged for some reason. It says: > I believe in the old idiom, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The whole reason I want government to be small is because I know that the bigger and more powerful it gets, the more corrupt it will get. The more unwieldy it is to change. > The U.S. government has tons of corruption. And we've seen that in recent years with the CIA and the FBI, with the spying, and mass data collection. You look at how the U.S. government treats Assange and Snowden and tell me they aren't corrupt. The fake Russiagate scandal was built on lies forged by our own intelligence agencies. The Iraq war was supposed to be based on WMDs. I could go on and on...but you've got to be naive to call the U.S. government corruption-free or anything close to it.

fzeroracer 7y ago

I assume you are not familiar with the various actions Nestle has taken in order to ensure their hegemony over chocolate production? Corporations benefit plenty from war and famine. Some of their actions are more overt than others. If corporations were allowed to force people to work at gunpoint, make no mistake: They absolutely would. In some parts of the world, they just do so by integrating themselves deeply into the local governments. Then those corporations can point towards the big bad government as being the reason why they employed slave labor, while walking away all the richer.

malvosenior 7y ago
Corporations are definitely also moral hazards in many cases. But even when they profit from war, I think it's some form of government or government-like agency that's actually killing people. I'm not saying corporations should be trusted, I'm saying that the government is far worse than any corporation in terms of corruption and coming with "ties" to how your money is spent.
smabie 7y ago
Maybe you should enlighten us all about the evils of the Nestle corporation then? Just saying stuff and not following up reflects more poorly on you than the parent poster.