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>The real scum are these so called "representatives" who place corporate interests over small businesses and citizens. I don't see why we can't find both to be

• robertlagrant 3y ago
  Because only one is being paid for by public funds to be impartial.
  • AYBABTME 3y ago
    The corporation can also be scum by virtue of being an unpleasant actor in society.
    • erulabs 3y ago
      Yes but it's much harder calculus. What's the net of a very large tractor manufacturer existing or not existing? If they lobby in a way you don't like but they also cause cereals to be 15% cheaper, how can you calculate their "unpleasant"-ness? A public official taking a contribution in return for carving out an exception in a law is quite an easy one.
      • mjburgess 3y ago
        The same calculus applies to the politician, you're just imparting certain social duties on one and not the other. If you want to know why american society is prone to this sort of privitized corruption: this is it. Business is seen as a pure mechanism, but politics is a place of hyper-individualized duty. In europe, i think the reverse is more often true. Businesses are seen in personalized ways, as having explicit social duties compromised by greed; and politics is a pure mechanism.
        • robertlagrant 3y ago
          Erm no - businesses can also be moral. In fact there's an enormous social pressure to look good. That's why people get fired for things that happen on Twitter. The only difference is businesses get money for doing something someone else wants, and they need to keep doing that. Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing: be impartial and resistant to even more free money.
          • mjburgess 3y ago
            >Erm no - businesses can also be moral. That's my point. We agree. > businesses get money for doing something someone else wants > Politicians take your money and can't even do the one thing they should be doing ^ Here is my issue. This is a cognitive-dissonance. You can equally say: businesses failing their social duty aren't giving society what it wants; rather, they are sating the greed of their customers, shareholders and execs. Whereas politicians are balancing competing power interests into a compromise piece of legislation with a chance of being passed, and thereby improving the situation; if, very imperfectly. You see, under these reframings it is the biz failing, not the polician. to be clear, I do not agree with either framing. My point is only how quickly americans adopt this "if someone's buying, it's excusable" morality as applied to business. As-if politics were a place of heroic powerful individuals, and business merely a mechanism. The reality is both is true of both. Business can be held to much higher standards; and politicans can be more subtly understood.
            • robertlagrant 3y ago
              > My point is only how quickly americans adopt this "if someone's buying, it's excusable" morality as applied to business. I'm not sure why you're talking about Americans, but my point is that the main thing a business does is create employment and useful goods or services. > As-if politics were a place of heroic powerful individuals, and business merely a mechanism. No, creating employment and useful goods or services is extremely important and heroic. It's just different to being the person who takes money from others on the sole basis that he/she will be impartial and not take bribes.
      • AYBABTME 3y ago
        If the politician is scum as a result of having ought to judge the corporations' lobby as being scum, then it follows that the politician is able to come up with a calculus where the corporation is scum. And if the politician is able to, so am I.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    • standardUser 3y ago
      You can call them "scum" if it makes you feel better. But even if the greatest shame campaign the world has ever seen was to miraculously convince John Deere to change their ways, other companies would just step in and take advantage of the system the same way John Deere has. The only solution is to change the rules.
  • pengaru 3y ago
    Clearly one side is giving substantially more.