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“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than und

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. C. S. Lewis

titzer 5y ago
> C. S. Lewis Figures. Back then, corporations weren't such a huge thing. Now we've got growthism. No matter how much money a megacorp makes, it's always gotta make more for its shareholders. If the CEO and board are not going along with that, they will be replaced. Corporations are stuck on a hedonistic treadmill divorced from the finite capacity of a human stomach to be sated. Conscience? Since when did a corporation ever have need of a conscience? In short, Lewis lacked imagination.
- svieira 5y ago
  Lewis came _after_ the East India Trading Company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company) - he's talking about corporations that resemble the fever dreams of _Neuromancer_ and _Snow Crash_, not the (relatively) puny things we have today. He didn't lack imagination at all - he's saying that the moral busybody is _worse_ because their impetus is a better one, so they have more focus and energy to pursue their goals than the hedonist / greed-driven individual.
  - titzer 5y ago
    I understand what he is saying, I just disagree. We are blind to the horrors of our own system when we apologize for it and point the finger at things that we fear and distrust. It's nothing more than an intentional distraction from the evil that already exists in this world. I suspect that he got himself into these contortions trying to apologize for a Christian view of God as all-loving but wrestling with the problem of evil. Especially because those robber barons and mega companies of the day mouthed Christian platitudes all along their conquest. I just ran out of patience with the "socialism bad" reductionism that underlies a lot of sophisticated-sounding analyses but ultimate amounts to "just let me do whatever I want, look those baddies aren't that bad, maybe they're even good!"
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  He specifically talks about robber barons, who were the greedy corporations of their time.
- angelzen 5y ago
  You have never experienced Soviet bureaucracy and its petty spitefullness in the name of fighting on behalf of the oppressed. Though the DEI commissars are quickly filling that void. Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!
Wyoming23 5y ago
True, the current cruelty of making all living things on earth suffer so that overweight Americans can continue cheaply eating meat 3 times a day is a pretty crushing tyranny. Or were you going the other way, and absurdly suggesting that not subsidizing the costs of meat would be tyranny?
allkrop 5y ago
Ah yes, C. S. Lewis, renowned economist/historian/sociologist. What is a reader supposed to gain from your triple-logical-leap from "tax the unsustainable pollution and water-guzzling that factory farms hide from the public eye" to "tyranny" to...what I can only assume is your point, that pollution and cheap meat is the work of "robber barons", and less pollution and/or more expensive meat is the work of "omnipotent moral busybodies", therefore poisoned lakes and Happy Meals are Better. If you're going to draw that analogy, please point out where the "sleep" and "satiation" is occurring in the behavior of factory farming and downstream cheap-meat industries. And point out what, specifically, is the "endless torment" that will be wrought by those forcing these "robber barons" to change that course, to either raise prices, cut profits, actually looking for other sources of cheap meat, work harder at cheating the "moral busybodies" like they already do, or, in all likelihood, a little bit of everything.
opportune 5y ago
Ah yes, the great tyranny of recovering externalities via taxes.
esarbe 5y ago
Yeah, sorry, no. Unfortunately, today's robber barons appetites are never satisfied, they never sleep and the devastation they wreck is destroying the livelihood of all mankind. They need to put in check, not matter how good of an author of surreal children's fiction Lewis was.

titzer 5y ago

> C. S. Lewis Figures. Back then, corporations weren't such a huge thing. Now we've got growthism. No matter how much money a megacorp makes, it's always gotta make more for its shareholders. If the CEO and board are not going along with that, they will be replaced. Corporations are stuck on a hedonistic treadmill divorced from the finite capacity of a human stomach to be sated. Conscience? Since when did a corporation ever have need of a conscience? In short, Lewis lacked imagination.

svieira 5y ago
Lewis came _after_ the East India Trading Company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company) - he's talking about corporations that resemble the fever dreams of _Neuromancer_ and _Snow Crash_, not the (relatively) puny things we have today. He didn't lack imagination at all - he's saying that the moral busybody is _worse_ because their impetus is a better one, so they have more focus and energy to pursue their goals than the hedonist / greed-driven individual.
- titzer 5y ago
  I understand what he is saying, I just disagree. We are blind to the horrors of our own system when we apologize for it and point the finger at things that we fear and distrust. It's nothing more than an intentional distraction from the evil that already exists in this world. I suspect that he got himself into these contortions trying to apologize for a Christian view of God as all-loving but wrestling with the problem of evil. Especially because those robber barons and mega companies of the day mouthed Christian platitudes all along their conquest. I just ran out of patience with the "socialism bad" reductionism that underlies a lot of sophisticated-sounding analyses but ultimate amounts to "just let me do whatever I want, look those baddies aren't that bad, maybe they're even good!"
beaconstudios 5y ago
He specifically talks about robber barons, who were the greedy corporations of their time.
angelzen 5y ago
You have never experienced Soviet bureaucracy and its petty spitefullness in the name of fighting on behalf of the oppressed. Though the DEI commissars are quickly filling that void. Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!

Wyoming23 5y ago

True, the current cruelty of making all living things on earth suffer so that overweight Americans can continue cheaply eating meat 3 times a day is a pretty crushing tyranny. Or were you going the other way, and absurdly suggesting that not subsidizing the costs of meat would be tyranny?

allkrop 5y ago

Ah yes, C. S. Lewis, renowned economist/historian/sociologist. What is a reader supposed to gain from your triple-logical-leap from "tax the unsustainable pollution and water-guzzling that factory farms hide from the public eye" to "tyranny" to...what I can only assume is your point, that pollution and cheap meat is the work of "robber barons", and less pollution and/or more expensive meat is the work of "omnipotent moral busybodies", therefore poisoned lakes and Happy Meals are Better. If you're going to draw that analogy, please point out where the "sleep" and "satiation" is occurring in the behavior of factory farming and downstream cheap-meat industries. And point out what, specifically, is the "endless torment" that will be wrought by those forcing these "robber barons" to change that course, to either raise prices, cut profits, actually looking for other sources of cheap meat, work harder at cheating the "moral busybodies" like they already do, or, in all likelihood, a little bit of everything.

opportune 5y ago

Ah yes, the great tyranny of recovering externalities via taxes.

esarbe 5y ago

Yeah, sorry, no. Unfortunately, today's robber barons appetites are never satisfied, they never sleep and the devastation they wreck is destroying the livelihood of all mankind. They need to put in check, not matter how good of an author of surreal children's fiction Lewis was.