Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

I have one technical objection to corporations, which is limited liability, which erodes personal responsibility, a basis of capitalism. But the idea of organized free enterprise is one of the greatest of human civlizations; corporations can do comparatively little harm by themselves, it’s only when combined with government that they get the power to be sinister beyond their scale. Governments made the Holocaust, world wars, empires, ethnic cleanings, mass plunder, Indian removals, fugitive slave hunting, religious persecution and give us barely functional security in return at best. Corporations and their owners and entrpreneurs are often greedy, selfish and myopic but they have given us modernity, prosperity, electricity, transportation, food, communication, etc.

Not even close.

Eric, I believe you misinterpret or misrepresent the quote in the opening paragraph. The root of the problems is the CONTROL that corporations have over all aspects of our lives, from church pew to the highest levels of government and pervasive in our homes.

In fact, I have to leave civilization to some place like Arches Nat’l. Park to shed corporation’s intrusion upon my life. Corporations are essential to America’s health and well being, but at the same time, their control over all aspects of our lives is also proving time and again to be America’s greatest liability in terms of health and well being of the nation.

Matt raises and excellent point, Corporate heads need to be held legally responsible for the criminal actions of their corporations right along with perpetrators under them. That is the only way leadership will demand ethical and legal corporate behavior. Additionally, corporation’s access to government needs to be by subpeona or invitation only. And we would do well to separate politicians from corporate America as well. Politicians today serve multiple masters and the public it too often the least of them.

This may be a restating of what David said but:

Reduced to its most simple and pure form, the goal of any corporation is to gain. In most cases, this means gain money. I think it is totally unreasonable to expect a business to voluntarily do anything that would cause it to lose money. The corporation is a lion. The government is the zoo keeper. Its job should be to control the lion, to set limits, to protect the people. It makes logical sense that there should be wall between government and corporations, how can the government work for the people when its being feed by the lion?

I don’t mean this in any sort of emotional way, or anything less than purely logical. We cannot expect anything to not act in its own self interest, it is in the interest of business to exploit labor as there is an endless source of it. It is in the interest of the business to get rid of its waste in the cheapest way possible. This isn’t good or bad - it just is. The relationship between Government and Business should, at its best be confrontational and contemptuous. They should balance each other out. Business should be expected to do everything it can to make as much money as it can. Thats a healthy business. Government should do everything it can to make sure its citizens are protected. As it is now, business IS government. The Lion runs the zoo.

Matthew,
“Corporations and their owners and entrpreneurs are often greedy, selfish and myopic but they have given us modernity, prosperity, electricity, transportation, food, communication, etc.”

Corporations give nothing away.
They will, for a cost, provide you with what they have to sell.
If it wasn’t for the greed, selfishness, etc, there would be no need for unions, regulations,,etc.

Eric,
corporations bring prosperity at their whim not yours.

Eric,
Good Goering quote! Usually introducing Nazis into any discussion is the equivalent of ‘jumping the shark.’

“If it is wrong for corporations to have too much economic control why isn’t it wrong for government, a true monopoly, to have too much economic control?”

The US government is at least theoretically answerable to the voters. A corporation is only answerable to the majority of its stockholders, which may be only a few people or even a family; a multinational may have even less accountability than that. Another difference: the US government is not run for profit (insert joke here), yet exerts control over a wide range of areas. A corporation exerts control over a comparitively limited range. There are too many differences to enumerate- it’s really not a valid comparison.

phx8, are you proposing to do away with the Federal Reserve System? Are you proposing the U.S. government rely upon tariffs for revenue and dispense with personal taxes altogether?

Have you thought about what the U.S. government provides for the safety, security, and benefit of its citizens, as well as the benefit of millions upon millions in the rest of the world via spin offs of its seed funded research programs? Is the U.S. government too large? Does it consume to many personal resources? If so, compared to what?

I see parallels between us and the Roman Empire, but, only some. This is a unique nation, in a unique time in history, with unique demands and possibilities before it. Something to think about when trying to come up with a standard to compare our government to.

The root of the problem is the CONTROL that corporations have over all aspects of our lives, from church pew to the highest levels of government and pervasive in our homes.

I agree with Matthew. What kind of control do you think they have without government? For instance I wear contacts. I know exactly what prescription I wear, it doesn’t really change. But can I order contacts without a first going to see an optomitrist? No. Basically business colluded with government to make it illegal for me to buy contacts without first paying the optometrist and my prescription is only valid for a specific period. Forcing me to return to pay for the same service again and again.

Capitalism dictates that I should be free engage the services of others by mutual agreement. As a provider I could certainly put any stipulations I want on an agreement, and as a buyer I would be free to refuse. That’s the essense of the market. Even if an Optometrists guild banded together to do the same thing there would be no law against buying contacts without a prescription and I’d be free to buy from whoever would sell them to me.

As far as accountability. The ultimate accountability is your dollar. You choose to buy or not buy. I frankly can’t understand those who on the one hand advocate that we all consume less and then complain that corporations are FORCING us to buy their products.

Eric-
You have this bad habit of taking your grievances with the most radical of our brethren in the Democratic and Liberal establishment with the rest of us more moderate folks.

Truth is, we don’t mind big corporations, we just want to protect our interests when they threaten them. Our interests as consumers, our interests as citizens, our interests as human beings who want a fair days wage for a days work. I think you conflate these legitimate impulses with the more strident of our fellows because it makes you feel more secure about your economic radicalism. After all, if you’re right, then we’re all radical socialists who must be stopped. But we’re not radical. We’re actually seeking to conserve a system that helped create the greatest flowering of the middle class in this or any other nation’s history.

Unfortunately, the mainstream in your party has seen fit to chip away at that edifice in the interests of promoting economic growth by libertarian business practices. What you fail to see is that without a system of rules concerning business practices and the willingness to submit those practices to the rule of law, you get a race to the bottom as a few cheaters prosper and everybody imitates them. You commit a textbook fallacy in believing that over the long run, the tendency of the market to correct dysfunctional practices translates to the prevention of malfeasance and economic disaster.

Your people are too much the idealists, expecting the world to unfold according to your dreams, not according to good old stubborn human nature. You fail to set limits then are shocked when people fail to act decently.

Truth is, the health of the economy cannot remain an excuse for lax regulations and lax enforcement. While corporate interests should have the freedom to carry out benign business practices, and to compete within the law as aggressively as they can, they should not be given the ability to seize control of the markets from consumers, nor be given free reign to behave as they please, because ultimately such license is destructive to the economy, to our humanity, and to our society. We cannot throw off the tyrants of non-democratic government, only to yield to oligarchical businessmen. Power must rest with the citizens of this country as a whole, not merely with a few who are deemed deserving by their respective colleagues of such power.

Who was Ken Lay again and what did he do? I keep forgetting.

Aldous.

Aldous

Ken Lay was a consummate political businessman, who used political connections and large contributions to both Republicans and Democrats to build a house of cards business empire. While he was making money, Lay and his company Enron were beloved by stockholder, employees, charities and NGOs on which he lavished money. Enron was a supporter of many beloved causes including the Kyoto protocols (http://www.enron.com/corp/pressroom/responsibility/climate/debates.html). And Ken Lay was one of 25 business executives on Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development. Enron is a good example of failure of government and businesses.

It is instructive to note, however, that the market – not the government – warned of Enron and brought it down. There was plenty of greed to go around. The excess went to far and crashed. It probably would have gone down much sooner except for its strong connections in government during the 1990s and it is no exaggeration to say that government regulation made Enron possible.

Jack, you say ‘warned’? I say it was self evident by California’s losses that scam became apparent. Same way a shopkeeper turns back to his register to find it empty and deduces he has been robbed. Warned? I don’t think so. The rip-off was completed, there was no warning by business or government, until the effects of the crimes were evident.

Stephen,

What you fail to see is that without a system of rules concerning business practices and the willingness to submit those practices to the rule of law, you get a race to the bottom as a few cheaters prosper and everybody imitates them. You commit a textbook fallacy in believing that over the long run, the tendency of the market to correct dysfunctional practices translates to the prevention of malfeasance and economic disaster.

I’m not sure you understand my position on this. Either that or you are prefer to continue characterizing my position as advocating ‘Mad Max Capitalism’ when I clearly am not.

What we apparently have a disagreement over is the extent to which that system of rules is based on broad and general laws that govern everyone equally or whether congress can pass any law they see fit at any time about any business in particular. Clinton’s healthcare reform for instance.

The question is where does regulation end? What’s the principle to say something goes too far?

For instance, if everyone agrees that capitalism works so well, why would they fight privatization so hard?

While corporate interests should have the freedom to carry out benign business practices, and to compete within the law as aggressively as they can, they should not be given the ability to seize control of the markets from consumers, nor be given free reign to behave as they please, because ultimately such license is destructive to the economy, to our humanity, and to our society.

Any examples of this actually happening? This is a strawman. First you must define what in the heck ‘seizing control of the markets’ is in a free society where people have the choice of starting their own business any time they want.

Please define for me what a company would have to do to seize control of a market.

eric wrote For instance, if everyone agrees that capitalism works so well, why would they fight privatization so hard?

It works well within certain contexts and constraints. Would you turn FEMA over to private enterprise? How about the Pentagon or DoD? Of course not. The reason is that if there is no profit motive, but, other ends which are fundamental to the needs of society, capitalism does NOT work well. That is why some things should not be privatized. Like SS Insurance or even education for that matter. The fundamental goals of these institutions is not profit, but, setting a baseline quality of life for all of society’s citizens regardless of their station in life or other qualifications or fortunes or misfortunes.

Eric asked: I agree with Matthew. What kind of control do you think they (capitalists) have without government?

Monopoly and all of the inherent evils monopoly brings about.

Governments create monopolies. The illusion that they fight it is because they attack individual enterprise monopolies but then through purportedly safety oriented regulation and licensing create monopolies for entire industries (eg lawyers, doctors, etc.).

“Corporations give nothing away.
They will, for a cost, provide you with what they have to sell.”

And that’s a good thing, they are not my slaves to perform my whim without asking something in return. Their limitation is that in a free market if they keep raising their prices, I can go from Exxon to Texaco. (Unless the whole industry has a monopoly advantage due to special government protection through licensing, overregulation, corporate welfare (stadium in DC)and tariffs.)

Rules are important, one of the best and underappreciated rule systems ever devised is the Uniform Commercial Code (which by the way — on another issue — was SEPARATELY adopted with minor variations in all 50 states, not federally imposed). It is long but not cumbersome, friendly to ease of commerce but punitive and preventive of fraud.

But overregulation not only stifles creativity and product availability as right wing critics note, overregulation also serves to entrench the power of the larger corporations and enterprises at the expense of competition which is why industries reconcile themselves early to regulation bodies and get in bed with government, as the regulatory bodies screen out creative upstarts due to compliance costs.

Limited liability of corporate responsibility should be severely curtailed. Not to mention corporate welfare. Go Nader on this one! I can understand that an ordinary buyer of a stock might be liable only to the extent of the investment, but people in position of greater power and knowledge should be on the hook (even lenders should be liable to the level of knowledge and control) civilly and criminally. In this area even Ralph Nader has a point.

Apportioning liability is a better way to restrain corporations than hyperregulation or demonizing their nature, purpose and existence.

Jack-
You should inquire as to what kinds of deregulation companies like Enron sought out. Deregulation of energy markets, deregulation of accounting, deregulation of corporate finances. These are measures that they fought for, and got from the Republican congress during the 90s. To what end? To make more money, and not by providing additional services to the consumer.

The problem with modern corporations is that the people in control consider money as the sole means of measuring the success and failure of business. Even leaving aside non-economic losses from this behavior, this kind of thinking is still shortsighted, because all business must operate in the real world.

The temptation with modern business is to get in and get out with as much money as possible, by any means necessary. Executives are even rewarded for failures, for getting fired. Pay and compensation has skyrocketed over ten times in the last thirty years, while the average workers’s compensation has only increased 75%. The welfare of the consumer, the employee, and even the investors has been made secondary to hitting unrealistic wall street targets. Companies can actually make a profit and still be punished in the stock market because they didn’t make enough of one to please the speculators.

In short, a system has developed around an abstraction of corporate profit, and is putting itself in conflict with everything else. Your people unfortunately fail to realize that the conflict is there for good reason.

We don’t want a media where robust debate is squeezed out. We don’t want markets where the dominance of the market share of a company does more to keep its profits going than the quality of its products compared to its competitors. We don’t want our health and well-being made secondary to a healthcare executive’s fat stock-option portfolio. If you heard half the things I heard from my mother about what the insurance companies do in terms of procedures, you’d probably need a bit of healthcare yourself. Can you imagine somebody having to readmit you to a hospital in order to change your diagnosis? We don’t want to be wracked by disease and disability just for living around a factory, or by working in one.

This is what I mean by not trading the Tyranny of a non-democratic government for an oligarchy of businessmen. No one small group of people should be able to make consequential decisions, without direct consequences at the hands of those affected by those decisions. With our elected officials, well… isn’t it obvious?

Were this a dictatorship, Bush would not have had to fight the bitter fight he did, just to stay in office. Not even a tenth of one percent of the population of this country is all that stood between him and a permanent trip back to Crawford. Each representative has to make that same fight.

Even the Bureaucrats are subject to such approval, from appointment to confirmation to instructions from the top.

But businessmen, allied together in powerful corporation? They only answer to stockholders, among which they often number and have disproportionate representation and influence. Sure, we can influence their fates after they precipitate collosal economic or human disasters, but do you want to wait that long or count on the fear of those who may just believe they are invincible, economically speaking? If a failure of business is pretty predictable, if the consequences of certain policies is known, then we should regulate, and make such harmful practices punishable, rather than merely embarrassing.

Eric-
You clearly are not advocating Mad Max Economics? That’s alright, we didn’t need another hero, nor another way home.

But seriously, how clear are you about that, when any mention of legal restraint gets you cursing loudly about pinko radical liberals? If by Mad Max rules, you mean anarchy and survival of the fittest, I do think that even if you’re not intending to go that far, you’re nonetheless heading in that direction.

Privatization gets resisted because we’ve seen enough of what can happen in the stock market to know that most people would get taken to the cleaners. Social Security is supposed to be insurance, a way of making sure that we will have some income if we couldn’t save enough for retirement.

And what do I mean by “seize control of the markets?” Well…

1)Mergers and Takeovers Get enough market share in an essential business, and you can dictate practices, quality, price, etc. People will still need the product, so they can’t just abandon you. For example, Microsoft, Media companies, and Wal-Mart.

2)Deceptive trade, accounting, and financing practices Part of market control is knowledge. Control what people know, and you can skew their choices off the options they would choose had they full knowledge.

In terms of consumers, it’s knowledge about the quality of the items or services provided. If car manufacturers can keep product safety hazards under wraps in their vehicles, people will buy vehicles they might otherwise reject. If a drug company can keep concerns about a drug under wraps, they can sell medication doctors might not otherwise prescribe, and people might not otherwise purchase. The same goes for any kind of product.

A service can be done just as deceptively. A company might lie to the consumer to get people to buy services they don’t need, or to cover for a repeated or pervasive mistake committed by their people. To some extent, Caveat Emptor does apply, and should apply. We can’t legislate all deceptive business practices out of the economic picture. However, we must recognize that there is only so much an Emptor can Caveat. At some point, people need that effort to devote to something else important in their lives. At some point, people need third-party intervention on their behalf, and while private institutions can sometimes do the job, we sometimes need the power of the government to properly sanction such behavior.

Accounting and finance are another story. People do risk things, and if they risk their money without due thought, they should lose their shirts. Nobody should go into the market with any illusions about the risks.

The economy, though has more than it’s share of illusions it can snare the unwary with, without people adding on to them with lies and deceptions to the people who risk their money. Not every investor can recover from such a deception well.

People follow advice and those people following the capitalistic impulse without the benefit of a degree in economics or business follow it more than others. What protection do they have from an unscrupulous stockbroker or from a company whose economic success masks masterfully hidden stock or financing scams?

————-

There are other ways in which companies can remove people’s ability to punish the corporations misbehavior or negligence, but in short, it all has to do with whether it is the people who set the rules of the market, or a group of elites looking to benefit themselves and their associates. There will always be a tension between the two in a functioning capitalist society. My position is that we do not have nearly enough pull on the side of the average person who has to live with such decisions as those elites make.

Eric, so much has been said about the wonder of free enterprise.
Tell that to the mom and pop store owner that sold American goods but went out of business because of Walmart.
Tell that to the blue collar guy that lost his job to corporate downsizing.
Tell that to the construction worker that lost his job to an illegal alien that works for less than minimum wage.
Please remind me again about the glories of de-regulation.

Nicely put, Stephen.
The Republican’s need to be reminded that their party once consisted of someone like Teddy Roosevelt, who knew that too much corporate power in the hands of the unscrupulous rich could lead only to America’s ruin.

Do corporations need to be ‘reigned in’ or eradicated for the good of the world?

No, definitely not. But in some cases they need to be ‘reined in’.

Spelling aside, read Adam Smith. The basic argument for capitalism is an argument against uncontrolled corporations. In Smith’s day, as in ours, certain corporations were receiving unfair advantages from government deals. This ultimately hurt consumers. Capitalism without competition falls apart.

Hence, a completely capitalistic argument can be made that corporations need to have limits applied to them:
(a) When their behavior is non-competitive, and
(b) When significant negative externalities are created.

The latter is a broad category and includes such things as environmental degradation, use of infrastructure, etc. The principle at work is “you pay for what you get”. If the corporation is using up a renewable public resource, they should pay for it. Some public resources are scarce (such as clean air) and limits must be set on their consumption.

Being cautious of corporate greed is not anti-capitalistic. The desire for consumable goods is a massive, powerful engine - and it just needs to be kept in good working order to keep moving our country forward. Uncared for, it can rust up or explode.

David,

Monopoly and all of the inherent evils monopoly brings about.

There is no such thing as monopoly without the use of force. Every ‘monopoly’ that ever existed did so only with the use of force. Usually that has meant the use of government force. re: J. Anthony’s post

I’m not sure I’m communicating this very well because no one seems to pick up on it. I want a limited government. A government whose only job is to watch the henhouse. Not run the henhouse. But watch the henhouse. Neither should ‘the people’ be running the henhouse through their representative government, which seems to be the guiding light here.

Would you turn FEMA over to private enterprise? How about the Pentagon or DoD?

FEMA meet the Salvation Army. They are very dedicated and the amount of overhead is extremely low. I don’t believe the Salvation Army does disaster relief on the scale of FEMA, but I certainly believe it could. Any organization could in fact mount the same operations as either government entity Defense included. More than likely at lower cost.

But c’mon David, the Green Party’s position is to cut the Defense Budget in half and shift all that money to ‘social’ needs. Obviously the Green party, believing privatization ruins the enterprise, wouldn’t mind if the Department of Defense were privatized.

The reason is that if there is no profit motive, but, other ends which are fundamental to the needs of society, capitalism does NOT work well. That is why some things should not be privatized. Like SS Insurance or even education for that matter. The fundamental goals of these institutions is not profit, but, setting a baseline quality of life for all of society’s citizens regardless of their station in life or other qualifications or fortunes or misfortunes.

This is where I would argue the left has it all wrong. What are the fundamental needs of society? Who defines it when it is decided that government will begin providing it? We need only look to the UN declaration of economic rights to see what principle this is based on. Positive rights. The right to food. The right to clothing. The right to a livable wage etc. The right to something that you do not possess is a right to enslave others. It is a right of expropriation. Contrasted with the bill of rights which are all freedoms from coercion. Negative rights. The right to free speech doesn’t mean I am entitled to a radio station.

Stephen,

businessmen …only answer to stockholders, …Sure, we can influence their fates after they precipitate collosal economic or human disasters, but do you want to wait that long or count on the fear of those who may just believe they are invincible, economically speaking? If a failure of business is pretty predictable, if the consequences of certain policies is known, then we should regulate, and make such harmful practices punishable, rather than merely embarrassing.

Do you mean regulate to keep the company from going out of business? In my version of capitalism the quicker the offending business is dissolved, liquidated, or fails the better. That is what defines correction of the market. Companies are run by human beings. The same species that run governments. I don’t think most of them are all that smart half the time, nor are they necessarily less corrupt. But when you shortcircuit the punishment of corruption and failure you gaurantee more of it.

Unfortunately, the tendency of government action is to soften the blow. To bail it out. To allow it to reorganize so that the stockholders don’t get hurt. Now as long as we are willing to let government, NO— demand that government do that, the worse off we will all be. Bad management, which includes dishonesty and illegality, needs to be rewarded with failure for the good of society and the good of all managers.

Privatization gets resisted because we’ve seen enough of what can happen in the stock market to know that most people would get taken to the cleaners. Social Security is supposed to be insurance, a way of making sure that we will have some income if we couldn’t save enough for retirement.

Any insurance company that operated a ‘retirement system’ like SS would soon be shut down by the gov’mint, and it’s officials in jail. By the way, the stock market is a good investment over the long term giving an overall positive return even through historic crashes.

1) Mergers and takeovers. Get enough market share in an essential business, and you can dictate practices, quality, price, etc. People will still need the product, so they can’t just abandon you. For example, Microsoft, Media companies, and Wal-Mart.

Can any of these companies be said to have, “seized control of the market,” in any way, outside of the normal bounds of competition and law? Given a situation where a company were to buy out all of it’s competition and then jack up prices, they have no guarantee, no royal contract or entitlement to control the market. In fact they only create a market that is much more attractive for competition. As long as that company cannot use the government or force to keep out competitors then they are playing within the rules.

If these present companies under present law are ‘seizing control of their markets’ what would you propose to fix that problem?

2)Deceptive trade, accounting, and financing practices Part of market control is knowledge. Control what people know, and you can skew their choices off the options they would choose had they full knowledge.

All part of the real job of government to enforce the laws and protect the rights of everyone. Deception and fraud is a kind of theft in any exchange. As I said before, I am not for anarchy, where anything goes including fraud or deception.

2 1/2) …it all has to do with whether it is the people who set the rules of the market, or a group of elites looking to benefit themselves and their associates.

Precisely. That is my exact point. The people always set the rules of the market unless a group of elites use the power of law to benefit themselves.

It is not stockholders who ultimately decide if a company succeeds or fails, it is the customers. I don’t care how much the stockholders supposedly dictate business decisions, if they fail in pleasing customers they will hurt for it. Whether there are alternatives or not.

Profit is not a measure of greed, it is a measure of survival. It is efficiency and provision. It is surplus.

Chops,

Thanks for the correction by the way. I seem to be mispelling more and more, I hope I’m not losing it.

Eric, good post. I do think you’re a little idealistic sometimes though.

I agree government and corporations combined are the greatest source of problems.

Sadly, this is the principle goal of many corporations. Most government contracts are highly profitable and less diligently negotiated on the government side. Deregulation often does not open markets but tilts a market toward the best lobbiest.

You say you are against unrestrained “Mad Max business”, but frequently your arguments don’t support that stance.

Corporate honesty, and service to the community it ultimately serves must be strongly controlled. to not do this leads to profiteering, damage to the enviroment and usurious practices. Sadly, government is often in the pocket of the wealthy corporations and the wealthy always have the weapon of costly litigation which often restrains adequate control.

I recognize you are a businessman Eric, but even you must recognize there are predators out there that diminsh society. It never is all one way or another. All I look for is balance.

Eric-
I would much prefer if you don’t use ellipses on me deceptively. I wrote:

But businessmen, allied together in powerful corporation? They only answer to stockholders, among which they often number and have disproportionate representation and influence.

In bold are the rather important parts of that statement in regards to why I believe regulation is important. Even though corporations do use votes, not everybody has the same number of votes. He who owns more stock, owns more votes. In this way, corporations can be run in a way that does not work in the interests or desires of most stockholders. In essence, true oligarchy.

Do you mean regulate to keep the company from going out of business? In my version of capitalism the quicker the offending business is dissolved, liquidated, or fails the better. That is what defines correction of the market.

No, that’s not my approach. My approach is to put in tough laws to make sure that stockholders aren’t decieved about the nature of the company’s books, aren’t sold stock by people who know the stock’s junk, or by people who also financed debt for the company, and have an interest in seeing a return.

In short, my approach is take an ounce of regulatory prevention instead of a pound of your marketplace cure. Ultimately, you know, the market depends on trust. People accept a certain level of risk, but rightly expect the companies to be clear with them about the results and products of that investment.

The company, in its own self-interest, should be the one to purge the ranks of the dishonest and the incompetent, to curtail bad behavior. If profit is made the only measure of when that should be done, the capacity for corruption is endless, because such immoral activity can and does make money.

As for your remarks on social security, you aren’t real precise on what is going on, or who is doing it. We don’t seem to have much to discuss there until you start bringing in some real details

Can any of these companies be said to have, “seized control of the market,” in any way, outside of the normal bounds of competition and law? Given a situation where a company were to buy out all of it’s competition and then jack up prices, they have no guarantee, no royal contract or entitlement to control the market. In fact they only create a market that is much more attractive for competition. As long as that company cannot use the government or force to keep out competitors then they are playing within the rules.

Yes, they can be said to have done that. Of course, it’s a loaded question, as they have lobbied quite aggressively with the Bush administration to get them to look the other way. Also, you don’t have to buy everything out.

Trouble with the way you engage this situation is that you have this almost binary way of thinking about a very human system. Fact is, when you’ve got the resources of a Wal-Mart, a Microsoft or a Viacom, you can deprive others of the means to get the footing to challenge you. I mean, can you seriously tell me that there is much of any danger of Microsoft losing ground in the PC Operating system market? Or can you seriously say that media companies won’t plug their own products on their associated networks. I mean, for heaven’s sake, one of your digs against 60 Minutes was that people published by Simon & Schuster were getting inordinate screen time. Your deregulation has enabled corporations to expand their holdings in many sectors without interference, even when it wasn’t in the best interests of the public. But of course, your way is to complain and do something about these situations after some breast gets bared or some corporation takes thousands of investors with it to financial ruin. I’d rather set things up so these problems get resolved or discouraged beforehand. The nature of any civilized societies, is one does not wait for wrongs to be done to discourage their commission. A code of conduct is instilled in both custom and law to keep the order, rather than let chaos and selfish ambition overwhelm our society with one hammerblow crisis at a time. I mean, let me ask you, did we really need a financial meltdown like that Enron created at the time we were dealing with 9/11 as well?

It isn’t that I don’t accept the role of chaos in the function of our economy to some extent. There is no system that can fully encompass and absolutely tame the wild informality at the heart of human behavior.

However, the absolutes go both ways. There is no system that can be simply left alone and be of benefit to mankind. Human systems are imperfect and malleable and it is as foolhardy to simply let anarchy take over as it is to legislate things to death. What we can do is create reinforced patterns of order and contained cells of chaos, such that economic, social, and political systems can take advantage of both the security of order, and the robust vitality of chaos. It won’t be perfect, but nothing is perfect. What it will be is strong.

I don’t think you understand just how much the economic crises of WorldCom, the Tech Sector, and Enron relied on Deregulation to even come to pass. WorldCom couldn’t have happened under the Glass-Steagal act. Enron could have been averted had stricter accounting standards been mandated by law.

But then, some people would have made less money. The economy might not have appeared to be as supercharged, and there might not be a whole bunch of Millionaires who did nothing better than sell and idea minus a business model.

Thing about profit is that in the end it is a morally blind measure of things. It only tells you somebody is making money. It doesn’t tell you how. Nor for how long. It doesn’t tell you if the efforts that went into bring it out will kill the company in the next quarter, or keep it going for the next ten years. Enron wasn’t altogether that efficient. The California power crisis, as profitable as it was, resulted from artificial inefficencies applied to the system. Enron’s accounting system was a Rube Goldberg machine. But for a long time, it was making a profit. Profit is a number that requires context, accuracy, precision and trustworthiness to be a good measure of anything.

Stephen,

Laws don’t stop lying and stealing, they don’t prevent corruption. They punish it afterward. I believe almost all of what Enron did was in fact illegal, wasn’t it? So in that sense, the ‘prevention’ in place didn’t prevent Enron from doing what it did. And they lobbied and allied with the Clinton Administration as well.

What I am saying is that advocates of strong and extremely strong regulation aren’t arguing that lying, stealing, and fraud should be outlawed, they are saying that business is criminal by it’s nature. That capitalism is an illicit force of greed and must be stopped. I’m saying the regulation of business must be based on clear principles, not demonization.

I mean, can you seriously tell me that there is much of any danger of Microsoft losing ground in the PC Operating system market? Or can you seriously say that media companies won’t plug their own products on their associated networks.

Yes, I do believe Microsoft is in danger of losing ground in the PC operating system market. I have a linux system as well as one running Microsoft. I must say the Linux desktop distributions are getting alot better. Not quite up to grandma being able to use it, but just abouton par with Windows. Actually, I know plenty of people who aren’t that computer literate with Windows!

Microsoft is looking at a future dominated by a different paradigm. Web applications are getting more complex, and with 60% of all servers running apache not IIS. (67% actually.) There is no guarantee Microsoft will always be the dominant operating system and there shouldn’t be. Microsoft should have to fight as hard as they have and do to keep any dominance they nominally deserve.

The latest XP activation scheme, for example, is only going to hurt them in the long run. There will be fewer machines running windows and more of linux as a result.

I mean, for heaven’s sake, one of your digs against 60 Minutes was that people published by Simon & Schuster were getting inordinate screen time. Your deregulation has enabled corporations to expand their holdings in many sectors without interference, even when it wasn’t in the best interests of the public.

No, my dig against them is that they are hypocrits who say they are impartial journalists who are above such ‘corruption of the news’, when in actuality they used everything at hand to further their political agenda. Yet thought they could hide that fact.

But of course, your way is to complain and do something about these situations after some breast gets bared or some corporation takes thousands of investors with it to financial ruin. I’d rather set things up so these problems get resolved or discouraged beforehand. The nature of any civilized societies, is one does not wait for wrongs to be done to discourage their commission. A code of conduct is instilled in both custom and law to keep the order, rather than let chaos and selfish ambition overwhelm our society with one hammerblow crisis at a time. I mean, let me ask you, did we really need a financial meltdown like that Enron created at the time we were dealing with 9/11 as well?

Again, I’m not sure how you think a law will prevent any such actions. After all, robbing a liquor store is not only stupid and risky, but you don’t get much money doing it, and it is against the law, still liquor store robberies persist.

Following this analogy, what you are suggesting is on par with passing legislation to ‘watch’ potential criminal liquor store robbers to make sure they aren’t able to carry through on their crimes.

This is what I mean by principles to base regulation on. The left seems to have two different standards for civil rights.

I am saying that the right to trade is a civil right like the right to free speech. Subject only to what is necessary to protect society from clear danger in its action.