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No, I am not. I am saying corporate interests are not aligned with those of the people at large, they are aligned exclusively with those of their shareholders.

No, I am not. I am saying corporate interests are not aligned with those of the people at large, they are aligned exclusively with those of their shareholders. I do not want my country’s laws to reflect a small group’s desires to make money.

WalterBright 5y ago
This completely overlooks the desires of the people that want the products the company provides at a reasonable price. This is not going away, regardless of how you structure things. People like to eat food and use washing machines. The notion that profit is the root of the problem is implying that removing the profit will resolve it. History shows that this never works. Socialism produces more environmental degradation, because it cannot produce things as efficiently as free market businesses can. So, to make up the gap, they pay little attention to the environment.
- dmkolobov 5y ago
  I don’t know why you keep bringing up socialism. My point is that corporate lobbying and donations should be restricted, not that free market businesses shouldn’t exist. There is a broad, non-linear spectrum between socialism and unrestricted corporate influence on government.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    Because Walter doesn't see any difference between Stalin's Soviet Union and election regulations.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      You're never going to get money out of politics. Even in the Soviet Union. Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have endemic corruption in government? Here in Seattle, the Council created "democracy vouchers" paid by the taxpayer to give to the candidate of their choice. What it really is is the incumbents using taxpayer money to fund their campaigns. If you're not an incumbent, good luck getting any of those vouchers.
      - dTal 5y ago
        >Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have endemic corruption in government? Literally no one thinks that or implied it in this conversation. What a non sequitur. I don't think you're even properly reading the comments you reply to.
        beerandt 5y ago
        Saying that "but for" corporate/capitalistic influence, government would be benevolent is very much implying that countries without capitalism shouldn't have corruption.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        Who said that? There's a bunch of comments saying lobbying makes things worse than not having lobbying. I don't see the ones saying that's the only source of problems?
        Stupulous 5y ago
        I think the argument is that absent corporate lobbying, politicians can still be influenced. Something else will fill the position, and the total amount of influence over politicians not granted democratically will be unchanged. Maybe that's still through money, but taken as direct bribes under the table, or maybe it's populism, or something else entirely. I don't know if that's true. I also don't know if what replaced campaign contributions would be better or worse. I do know that lobbying is itself overstated. In 1999, the GDP was 10 trillion. 3 billion, or 0.03%, of that went into politics, mostly from individual donors rather than companies [1]. If lobbying were an effective way to buy political influence, more companies would shell out. Maybe it's already happening under the table, though. [1][pdf] http://www.nber.org/papers/w9409.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w9409.pdf
      - inter_netuser 5y ago
        Good luck why?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > unrestricted corporate influence on government Your notion that absent corporate lobbying, government control would work out in the best interests of everybody is utterly without foundation. Your complaint about the profit motive being the root of evil also implies that without profit, things would be better. Without profit has been repeatedly tried. It never produces better results. My father grew up a socialist. Then he joined the military, and spent years living on military bases. There is zero profit motive on a military base. But there was no end of ridiculous problems, enormous waste, glacial bureaucracy, etc. This thoroughly disabused him of his socialist notions. For one small example, on a new base, furniture for the base housing had to be supplied. The base commander delegated the selection of furniture to his wife (men rarely care about these things). She picked all the furniture, confident in how great her taste was and what a big favor she was doing to the ignorant masses on base. The servicemens' wives all hated that furniture. My dad would always have a huge laugh at how much they loathed it. P.S. When my parents got married, my mom hated all of his furniture. He had to buy all new stuff to her specifications.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Please try responding to what people are actually saying rather than inventing endless strawman arguments. There are important functional distinctions between a government run enterprise, a government regulated enterprise and a completely unregulated enterprise. There are different types of inefficiencies in heirarchical systems and market systems. Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games. Heirarchical systems have trouble routing around incompetence and corruption. If you pay attention you'll notice that the systems that work best are hybrids that layer market and heirarchical systems. While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex. That has nothing to do with how things are run on a military base. Besides, if you've got any evidence that the military worked better in a non-market system, like the USSR, please present. > Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games. Another word for that is "competition". Competition makes them efficient. Eliminating competition leads to gross inefficiency and incompetence, making things far worse than the duplication ever did.

WalterBright 5y ago

This completely overlooks the desires of the people that want the products the company provides at a reasonable price. This is not going away, regardless of how you structure things. People like to eat food and use washing machines. The notion that profit is the root of the problem is implying that removing the profit will resolve it. History shows that this never works. Socialism produces more environmental degradation, because it cannot produce things as efficiently as free market businesses can. So, to make up the gap, they pay little attention to the environment.

dmkolobov 5y ago
I don’t know why you keep bringing up socialism. My point is that corporate lobbying and donations should be restricted, not that free market businesses shouldn’t exist. There is a broad, non-linear spectrum between socialism and unrestricted corporate influence on government.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Because Walter doesn't see any difference between Stalin's Soviet Union and election regulations.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    You're never going to get money out of politics. Even in the Soviet Union. Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have endemic corruption in government? Here in Seattle, the Council created "democracy vouchers" paid by the taxpayer to give to the candidate of their choice. What it really is is the incumbents using taxpayer money to fund their campaigns. If you're not an incumbent, good luck getting any of those vouchers.
    - dTal 5y ago
      >Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have endemic corruption in government? Literally no one thinks that or implied it in this conversation. What a non sequitur. I don't think you're even properly reading the comments you reply to.
      - beerandt 5y ago
        Saying that "but for" corporate/capitalistic influence, government would be benevolent is very much implying that countries without capitalism shouldn't have corruption.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        Who said that? There's a bunch of comments saying lobbying makes things worse than not having lobbying. I don't see the ones saying that's the only source of problems?
        Stupulous 5y ago
        I think the argument is that absent corporate lobbying, politicians can still be influenced. Something else will fill the position, and the total amount of influence over politicians not granted democratically will be unchanged. Maybe that's still through money, but taken as direct bribes under the table, or maybe it's populism, or something else entirely. I don't know if that's true. I also don't know if what replaced campaign contributions would be better or worse. I do know that lobbying is itself overstated. In 1999, the GDP was 10 trillion. 3 billion, or 0.03%, of that went into politics, mostly from individual donors rather than companies [1]. If lobbying were an effective way to buy political influence, more companies would shell out. Maybe it's already happening under the table, though. [1][pdf] http://www.nber.org/papers/w9409.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w9409.pdf
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      Good luck why?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > unrestricted corporate influence on government Your notion that absent corporate lobbying, government control would work out in the best interests of everybody is utterly without foundation. Your complaint about the profit motive being the root of evil also implies that without profit, things would be better. Without profit has been repeatedly tried. It never produces better results. My father grew up a socialist. Then he joined the military, and spent years living on military bases. There is zero profit motive on a military base. But there was no end of ridiculous problems, enormous waste, glacial bureaucracy, etc. This thoroughly disabused him of his socialist notions. For one small example, on a new base, furniture for the base housing had to be supplied. The base commander delegated the selection of furniture to his wife (men rarely care about these things). She picked all the furniture, confident in how great her taste was and what a big favor she was doing to the ignorant masses on base. The servicemens' wives all hated that furniture. My dad would always have a huge laugh at how much they loathed it. P.S. When my parents got married, my mom hated all of his furniture. He had to buy all new stuff to her specifications.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Please try responding to what people are actually saying rather than inventing endless strawman arguments. There are important functional distinctions between a government run enterprise, a government regulated enterprise and a completely unregulated enterprise. There are different types of inefficiencies in heirarchical systems and market systems. Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games. Heirarchical systems have trouble routing around incompetence and corruption. If you pay attention you'll notice that the systems that work best are hybrids that layer market and heirarchical systems. While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex. That has nothing to do with how things are run on a military base. Besides, if you've got any evidence that the military worked better in a non-market system, like the USSR, please present. > Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games. Another word for that is "competition". Competition makes them efficient. Eliminating competition leads to gross inefficiency and incompetence, making things far worse than the duplication ever did.