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I, for one, would be much happier with government brokering than corporate. At least with the (democratic) government, I will have some control. There are par
by ap22213 14y ago
I, for one, would be much happier with government brokering than corporate. At least with the (democratic) government, I will have some control. There are parliamentary processes, voting, constitutional rules, albeit often slow, that give me a say.
With the corporation, I only have illusion of control, zero transparency, and often contractual binding to an entity that only has incentive to take advantage of me.
Now, as far as government working properly: surely, it often doesn't work well. For one, governments are often too large (in citizen count) for individuals to participate effectively. This often leads to powerful interests taking over. But, perhaps this is because our governmental structures were invented way too long ago to be current.
The 'private citizen' part is interesting. I would prefer to have peer-to-peer relationships that are effective and strong enough. But, that's a ways off, isn't it?
- signalsignal 14y agoWhen dealing with a corporation, I can dump their services and go with a competitor. When dealing with a government, there are no competitors. You are automatically in their jurisdiction.
- cwp 14y agoNot true. Placing yourself in the jurisdiction of a competing government is just a matter of going there. People do it all the time.
- aeturnum 14y agoPoint taken, though it's generally a lot easier to buy a competing product than to move to a competing country.
- revscat 14y agoUnless they all agree, either through collusion or informal cooperation, to anti-consumer practices and to shut out smaller competitors. I'd much rather take my chances with democracy.
- thisrod 14y agoI can dump their services and go with a competitor Says who? Or, more to the point, whose army? When the corporations that hold your email and bank statements refuse to be dumped, you'll need someone to break into their server rooms, wipe their hard drives, and arrest or shoot anyone who resists. I want those people to obey the law, and be under democratic control.
- dmix 14y agoHow exactly could an email provider or bank legally prevent me from using another provider by holding back my information? If I opted into using their service and agreed to their TOS that included them keeping my data. Then thats my fault. But if they act maliciously, them having my data is hardly going to keep me from continuing to use their service.
- adityab 14y ago> If I opted into using their service and agreed to their TOS that included them keeping my data. Then thats my fault. You forget that all service providers have these TOS. You don't have a choice. > Them having my data is hardly going to keep me from continuing to use their service. If you've been using a Gmail account for several years, good luck closing it if you don't want to lose future emails sent to that address.
- dmix 14y ago> At least with the (democratic) government, I will have some control Citizen votes are non-binding. Politicians can do whatever they want once elected. The vast majority of people don't even pay attention to what they do once in office, unless it's particularly bad. Then once in office they don't have to face the consequences of reelection for 4-6 years. Government transparency is getting better thanks to technology. But at the same time there are more and more 500-page bills that even the politicians don't read. And more agencies with ever growing power who operate in secrecy. Transparency exists in corporations because they must operate in a market of both investors and customers. Both of those require visible results. In both the short and long term. Governments are not result-driven. The negative effects of most policies often take effect long after the politican is gone. In addition, the opportunity cost of Government backed economic and social policies are notoriously difficult to track. But arguably even if they were, based on recent political debates where things like the Fiscal cliff were not even mentioned, I doubt it would matter.
- jessaustin 14y agoSome people frame the gov't-vs-corp question as one of trust, which it certainly is. If we really thought about it, however, we might find that we're more motivated by the feeling (not the fact!) of agency. If you write lots of letters to your reps and attend lots of city council meetings, you probably feel more agency in dealing with the government. If you spend lots of money and change vendors often, you probably feel more agency in dealing with "private" corporations. Some of us might not experience much agency in our day-to-day lives, but still be tempted to choose one or both scenarios as a pleasant imaginative exercise. I suspect that much of the agency we feel in our dealings with both of these groups is illusory, perhaps inspired by a conditioning to approve of the broad basket of behaviors they were going to exhibit anyway. Even more imaginary, however, may be the thought that a strong embedding in a peer-regulating group will give us more agency. Humans had that arrangement for thousands of years, but most recent (last few centuries anyway) changes in society have undermined it. Society is the sum of choices we all make, and we don't seem to be returning to the village green.