2 ms·

If there is a "concomitant concentration of power," people are hosed, and you're exactly right. The point is to make sure there is NOT a concomitant concentrat

by javert 17y ago

If there is a "concomitant concentration of power," people are hosed, and you're exactly right. The point is to make sure there is NOT a concomitant concentration of power. In other words, you have to have limited government. In a free market system (capitalism), only government /actually/ has power. Corporations must compete. In our mixed economy, corporations do gain power, but that is because we do not have limited government.

chrischen 17y ago
If you limit the power of the government, wouldn't this then simply shift the balance of power to private individuals and corporations? Then instead of abusive governments, we'd have abusive companies. I mean the government takes certain powers away from private citizens in order to prevent us from abusing these powers (murder, fraud, etc). I agree that there are probably regulations that impede competition from performing ideally, but sometimes it is necessary, like in the public utilities. Some of these things simply can't work as well if we have multiple companies trying to screw each other over. Certainly the argument is valid, at least theoretically, that if we do not codify net neutrality, and deregulate the internet business, the companies that favor the consumers the most (most likely the net neutral ones) will dominate in the end, but there are other issues that come in practice. Who gets to create infrastructure (cables and stuff) through the ground when there are hundreds of them? Imagine if we privatized electricity. We'd have multiple powerlines everywhere. It'd just increase overall waste. Or perhaps radio wave broadcasting were to be deregulated. Nothing would function. There are potential problems if we don't regulate the ISPs and let them all duke it out. Sometimes the sum of the whole does not equal the parts.

2 ms·

If there is a "concomitant concentration of power," people are hosed, and you're exactly right. The point is to make sure there is NOT a concomitant concentrat

by javert 17y ago

chrischen 17y ago
If you limit the power of the government, wouldn't this then simply shift the balance of power to private individuals and corporations? Then instead of abusive governments, we'd have abusive companies. I mean the government takes certain powers away from private citizens in order to prevent us from abusing these powers (murder, fraud, etc). I agree that there are probably regulations that impede competition from performing ideally, but sometimes it is necessary, like in the public utilities. Some of these things simply can't work as well if we have multiple companies trying to screw each other over. Certainly the argument is valid, at least theoretically, that if we do not codify net neutrality, and deregulate the internet business, the companies that favor the consumers the most (most likely the net neutral ones) will dominate in the end, but there are other issues that come in practice. Who gets to create infrastructure (cables and stuff) through the ground when there are hundreds of them? Imagine if we privatized electricity. We'd have multiple powerlines everywhere. It'd just increase overall waste. Or perhaps radio wave broadcasting were to be deregulated. Nothing would function. There are potential problems if we don't regulate the ISPs and let them all duke it out. Sometimes the sum of the whole does not equal the parts.