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Your post is thoughtful and well-written. I upvoted your post even though I disagree. I dislike the HN tradition of "dislike = downvote." We need more posts lik

Your post is thoughtful and well-written. I upvoted your post even though I disagree. I dislike the HN tradition of "dislike = downvote." We need more posts like yours, not less. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; Progressives/liberals/etc wouldn't disagree much with this premise, but we'd differ mightily on what this premise means in practical terms. - The FDA is far from perfect, but it generally does a good job of protecting my person from snake oil medicine and adulterated foods. - A federal healthcare mandate/provider protects my person against dying of curable diseases because if I have no job/insurance at the moment - Taxpayer-funded education gives me the liberty to become literate and obtain a basic level of education so that I may become employable and so forth even if my parents are unwilling or unable to educate me And so on. There are a lot of ways for your person, properties, and liberties to be threatened, most of which are indirect. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power. We would agree, at least, that equally bad things happen when governments have too much power. We would disagree on what "too much" means, obviously.

syshum 6y ago
>>Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power. My argument is not about the intensity of the influence but rather about the type of influence, and what influence the government is allowed. I agree with most "progressives" on the nature of the problems we face as society, where I differ is on what should or can be done to solve them. History as shown that leaning on Authoritarian government regulations do not work out very well either, and leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. As the libertarian saying goes "Government: If you think you have problems now, what until you see our solutions" The ironic thing as well is when people paint "unfettered capitalism" with "corporations" A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporations are part of the government regulatory apparatus system. One of the key problems we have is the regulatory capture, because we have allowed government to create corporations, which in turn become powerful and desire to capture the regulations that created them so they can make themselves more powerful, vicious circle >>We would disagree on what "too much" means, obviously. I dont know that we would disagree with "too much power", currently it is not how powerful the government is that I have the most problem with, it is the centralization of power that more concerning. The US for all its flaws did get one thing right. Power is best when it distributed. Power wants to consolidate, and centralize, it is up the the people to resist this and we the people have been very poor at that, especially since the Great Depression. We now look to the Federal government to solve all of our problems this is not how our system was to be.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporations are part of the government regulatory apparatus system. I'm intrigued. (That's not sarcasm) What's the libertarian alternative? What are examples of situations where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations? It seems to me that corporations, minus the liability shield, would still be nearly as potentially dangerous. They are more or less sociopathic entities by necessity; ceasing to exist if they cease to turn profits, a thing they can only do if they compete successfully against their equally sociopathic rivals. Corporations can of course behave responsibly and generously, but this is always going to be at odds with their fundamental mission. (While all of this sounds anti-corporation, I'm not. Private enterprise is and should be the backbone of society. It's just that it's awfully destructive, unchecked.)
  - syshum 6y ago
    Private Enterprise should not be confused with corporations. Especially not modern corporations and all the legal structures that encapsulate them. Libertarian Private enterprise is more like LLC's, and partnerships than Corporations. As to where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations? You see hints of it all the time, anytime you see a situation where someone comments "if a person would have done X they would be in jail" well the Corporation is shielding the people that actually did the harm to society from consequences from their actions. Most of the time the actual bad actors simply move from one corporation to another continuing to inflict manage on society with no accountability because of those liability shield you view it as "sociopathic", but viewing it that way is part of the problem, we have anthropomorphized corporations to were we treat them like people, punish them (the corporations) with fines and other actions but never punish the actual human actors responsible for the activity I understand the need for some kind of limited liability in business, Strict Liability would likely cause very poor investment into private enterprise the problem is with corporations, especially publicly traded corporations we have created such a impenetrable liability shield around them that the incentive curve has shift so far towards "profit by any means" that the people in corporations are only punished when they DO NOT do bad things (i.e Pollute the environment, screw workers, etc) in chasing of more profit, and NEVER when they do those thing at most the corporation may pay a fine for doing it but the actual people responsible are never liable

syshum 6y ago

>>Sounds like unfettered capitalism to me. I would strongly argue history tells us this is precisely what happens when government has too little influence and corporations therefore become centers of power. My argument is not about the intensity of the influence but rather about the type of influence, and what influence the government is allowed. I agree with most "progressives" on the nature of the problems we face as society, where I differ is on what should or can be done to solve them. History as shown that leaning on Authoritarian government regulations do not work out very well either, and leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. As the libertarian saying goes "Government: If you think you have problems now, what until you see our solutions" The ironic thing as well is when people paint "unfettered capitalism" with "corporations" A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporations are part of the government regulatory apparatus system. One of the key problems we have is the regulatory capture, because we have allowed government to create corporations, which in turn become powerful and desire to capture the regulations that created them so they can make themselves more powerful, vicious circle >>We would disagree on what "too much" means, obviously. I dont know that we would disagree with "too much power", currently it is not how powerful the government is that I have the most problem with, it is the centralization of power that more concerning. The US for all its flaws did get one thing right. Power is best when it distributed. Power wants to consolidate, and centralize, it is up the the people to resist this and we the people have been very poor at that, especially since the Great Depression. We now look to the Federal government to solve all of our problems this is not how our system was to be.

JohnBooty 6y ago
A Corporation is a government created liability shield that does not exist in a "unfettered capitalist" system or rather a true free market. Corporations are part of the government regulatory apparatus system. I'm intrigued. (That's not sarcasm) What's the libertarian alternative? What are examples of situations where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations? It seems to me that corporations, minus the liability shield, would still be nearly as potentially dangerous. They are more or less sociopathic entities by necessity; ceasing to exist if they cease to turn profits, a thing they can only do if they compete successfully against their equally sociopathic rivals. Corporations can of course behave responsibly and generously, but this is always going to be at odds with their fundamental mission. (While all of this sounds anti-corporation, I'm not. Private enterprise is and should be the backbone of society. It's just that it's awfully destructive, unchecked.)
- syshum 6y ago
  Private Enterprise should not be confused with corporations. Especially not modern corporations and all the legal structures that encapsulate them. Libertarian Private enterprise is more like LLC's, and partnerships than Corporations. As to where removing the liability shields would encourage more beneficial behaviors from corporations? You see hints of it all the time, anytime you see a situation where someone comments "if a person would have done X they would be in jail" well the Corporation is shielding the people that actually did the harm to society from consequences from their actions. Most of the time the actual bad actors simply move from one corporation to another continuing to inflict manage on society with no accountability because of those liability shield you view it as "sociopathic", but viewing it that way is part of the problem, we have anthropomorphized corporations to were we treat them like people, punish them (the corporations) with fines and other actions but never punish the actual human actors responsible for the activity I understand the need for some kind of limited liability in business, Strict Liability would likely cause very poor investment into private enterprise the problem is with corporations, especially publicly traded corporations we have created such a impenetrable liability shield around them that the incentive curve has shift so far towards "profit by any means" that the people in corporations are only punished when they DO NOT do bad things (i.e Pollute the environment, screw workers, etc) in chasing of more profit, and NEVER when they do those thing at most the corporation may pay a fine for doing it but the actual people responsible are never liable