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to repeat my mantra, it's not either-or, it's all of the above. corporations, governments, and institutions of all kinds are especially designed to consolidate

to repeat my mantra, it's not either-or, it's all of the above. corporations, governments, and institutions of all kinds are especially designed to consolidate power. but society is better when power is dispersed widely, so that it's difficult (ideally impossible) to infringe individual liberties and civil rights without recourse. we the polity need to continually pit institutions against each other to maintain our freedoms. there's no "done, now let's move on" in that.

scarface74 6y ago
The difference is that any power you give the government is automatically amplified. The government has the power of the state, to wield power. Private corporations have only one goal - to make money. Government is controlled by ideologues. Also because of the nature of both the Senate with two senators per state and the electoral college, the less populous states have far more voting power than their population demands. Their belief system and worldview is completely different than mine - yes I live in one of those states. It’s not just about the difference on policy issues. It’s about fundamental human rights issues like police power and treatment of minorities, and how many of them believe fundamentally that none straight/non Christian people are an abomination and laws should be passed that discriminate against them.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "The difference is that any power you give the government is automatically amplified." that's not immediately obvious. power is divided in government, and ultimately rests collectively in the people. you'd expect the power expressed is exactly the accumulation of the tiny amounts each of us delegate to government. it's not perfect, but all the little divisions and mechanisms of check and balance are there specifically to prevent undue amplification. certainly the government has coercive power and we must be vigilant, but make no mistake, corporations are power structures that collaborate with and coerce the government into offense against the less powerful (minorities, women, etc.). who but the moneyed owners do you think try to distort and amplify their voice through government? it's not the average person that citizen's united benefits. the indirection of the corporate form is designed specifically to make it difficult to parse out their influence (and mistakenly place trust in them). they're designed specifically to insulate owners, to the benefit of no one else (governments be damned where they can get away with it). that there are assholes everywhere, including every corporation, who would discriminate against trivial shit is exactly why you want dispersed power across any structure or institution.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    > that's not immediately obvious. power is divided in government, and ultimately rests collectively in the people. you'd expect the power expressed is exactly the accumulation of the tiny amounts each of us delegate to government. it's not perfect, but all the little divisions and mechanisms of check and balance are there specifically to prevent undue amplification. Two issues: Power doesn’t rest in the hands of “the people”. It rests in the hands of the Electoral College - which doesn’t represent the people. As evidenced by the different outcome of the popular vote and the electoral vote. It rests in the hands of the Senate which also doesn’t represent “the people” it represents “the states” regardless of the population. The Senate also puts unelected judges on the bench with lifetime appointments and heads of government committees like the FTC, FDA, etc. that write regulations and are also unelected. The President - that doesn’t represent “the people” because of the electoral college also has undue power over the Justice Department, FBI and CIA - none of whom are elected. Even if we did have a government that represented “the majority”, that hasn’t worked out well if you aren’t part of the majority. Coercive power allowed Jim Crow, making homosexual sex (sodomy) a criminal offense and making interracial marriage (miscegenation) a criminal offense.
    - clairity 6y ago
      yes, those are valid criticisms of the distortions wrought on our representative democracy by elitism. people with money and power wanted that layer of indirection (at least since the 1700s) because they feared that the people would actually get what they want, which could include adverse actions against the elite. it was an unfortunate but unavoidable compromise at the time. that, and true direct democracy was practically impossible until the past few decades for a polity the size of a country. to be clear, i'm not arguing that governments are bastions of fairness and enligthenment, just that they're not much different from other power structures in that any institution (and especially the confluence of those institutions) is a threat to individual liberties and civil rights. however, governments are the primary mechanism of protecting and extending rights and liberties. the cause of discriminatory injustices like jim crow is not simply the representative form, but rooted in the people themselves--the collective us--as expressed by our differential power and influence. the wealthy simply have outsized influence over all policy, for no discernably valid reason. why should we ever give people who are particularly greedy the power to largely control social policy too?

scarface74 6y ago

The difference is that any power you give the government is automatically amplified. The government has the power of the state, to wield power. Private corporations have only one goal - to make money. Government is controlled by ideologues. Also because of the nature of both the Senate with two senators per state and the electoral college, the less populous states have far more voting power than their population demands. Their belief system and worldview is completely different than mine - yes I live in one of those states. It’s not just about the difference on policy issues. It’s about fundamental human rights issues like police power and treatment of minorities, and how many of them believe fundamentally that none straight/non Christian people are an abomination and laws should be passed that discriminate against them.

clairity 6y ago
> "The difference is that any power you give the government is automatically amplified." that's not immediately obvious. power is divided in government, and ultimately rests collectively in the people. you'd expect the power expressed is exactly the accumulation of the tiny amounts each of us delegate to government. it's not perfect, but all the little divisions and mechanisms of check and balance are there specifically to prevent undue amplification. certainly the government has coercive power and we must be vigilant, but make no mistake, corporations are power structures that collaborate with and coerce the government into offense against the less powerful (minorities, women, etc.). who but the moneyed owners do you think try to distort and amplify their voice through government? it's not the average person that citizen's united benefits. the indirection of the corporate form is designed specifically to make it difficult to parse out their influence (and mistakenly place trust in them). they're designed specifically to insulate owners, to the benefit of no one else (governments be damned where they can get away with it). that there are assholes everywhere, including every corporation, who would discriminate against trivial shit is exactly why you want dispersed power across any structure or institution.
- scarface74 6y ago
  > that's not immediately obvious. power is divided in government, and ultimately rests collectively in the people. you'd expect the power expressed is exactly the accumulation of the tiny amounts each of us delegate to government. it's not perfect, but all the little divisions and mechanisms of check and balance are there specifically to prevent undue amplification. Two issues: Power doesn’t rest in the hands of “the people”. It rests in the hands of the Electoral College - which doesn’t represent the people. As evidenced by the different outcome of the popular vote and the electoral vote. It rests in the hands of the Senate which also doesn’t represent “the people” it represents “the states” regardless of the population. The Senate also puts unelected judges on the bench with lifetime appointments and heads of government committees like the FTC, FDA, etc. that write regulations and are also unelected. The President - that doesn’t represent “the people” because of the electoral college also has undue power over the Justice Department, FBI and CIA - none of whom are elected. Even if we did have a government that represented “the majority”, that hasn’t worked out well if you aren’t part of the majority. Coercive power allowed Jim Crow, making homosexual sex (sodomy) a criminal offense and making interracial marriage (miscegenation) a criminal offense.
  - clairity 6y ago
    yes, those are valid criticisms of the distortions wrought on our representative democracy by elitism. people with money and power wanted that layer of indirection (at least since the 1700s) because they feared that the people would actually get what they want, which could include adverse actions against the elite. it was an unfortunate but unavoidable compromise at the time. that, and true direct democracy was practically impossible until the past few decades for a polity the size of a country. to be clear, i'm not arguing that governments are bastions of fairness and enligthenment, just that they're not much different from other power structures in that any institution (and especially the confluence of those institutions) is a threat to individual liberties and civil rights. however, governments are the primary mechanism of protecting and extending rights and liberties. the cause of discriminatory injustices like jim crow is not simply the representative form, but rooted in the people themselves--the collective us--as expressed by our differential power and influence. the wealthy simply have outsized influence over all policy, for no discernably valid reason. why should we ever give people who are particularly greedy the power to largely control social policy too?