An Internet hub for moderates, centrists, and independents, with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, and right

« Book Review: The Leopard Hat: A Daughter’s Story

Mission for the Mourner-in-Chief »

What is Beautiful: Small or Big?

Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist in Economy, Media, Places, Politics, Society.
Aug 28th, 2009 | Comments

The Economist magazine announces in almost celebratory tone that “big business” is back. But a spirited discussion follows in the comments section on the merits and demerits of big corporations.

Recalls The Economist:

“In 1996, in one of his most celebrated phrases, Bill Clinton declared that ‘the era of big government is over’. He might have added that the era of big companies was over, too …

“Today the balance of advantage may be shifting again. To a degree, the financial crisis is responsible. It has devastated the venture-capital market, the lifeblood of many young firms. Governments have been rescuing companies they consider too big to fail, such as Citigroup and General Motors.

“Recession is squeezing out smaller and less well-connected firms. But there are other reasons too, which are giving big companies a self-confidence they have not displayed for decades. Everyone agreed that the future lay with entrepreneurial start-ups such as Yahoo!

“The return of the giants could well be a boon for the world economy—but only if business people and policymakers avoid certain pitfalls. By and large, the most successful big firms focus on their core businesses.

“Policymakers should both resist an instinctive suspicion of big companies and avoid the old error of embracing national champions. It is bad enough that governments have diverted resources into propping up failing companies such as General Motors. It would be even more regrettable if they were to return to picking winners.”

More here.

And here.

And now, a sampling of the readers’ comments in The Economist:

“Big has its place and it should only stay there. Big writing the rules, regulations, policies and laws for governments (this has a neat term) gets too greedy and falls apart from within. A balance between ‘thinking globally and acting locally’ does make a lot of sense.”

“How can you discuss big is beautiful without mention of the terrible costs to our world economy that big banks have given us, by being too big to fail, and that the toxic assets are being swept under the rug while the market rallies? Big resource companies are buying land to control biofuels as well as mining/energy resources–often bribing local government officials to give away public resources.”

“There’s a reason for regulations, and it’s not to give more power to government, but to ensure that greedy, unethical people (running corporations) don’t trample on the rights of citizens. Corporations do not have divine destinies! And it’s the liberals who are more likely to make their profits honestly, and use them to help their fellow man!”

“Regulations do nothing but kill growth!!! Just like Pilate dictated over the huge temple of Jerusalem does Washington want to dictate over that huge manifestations to god which are today’s corporations.”

More here.

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad here, right now: $0

Don Quijote

“He might have added that the era of big companies was over, too…

ROTFLMAO...

The era of big companies is over, they are kidding? right?

I would love them to name any mature industry that isn't dominated by an oligopoly when it's not dominated by a monopoly.

Cell Phone (AT&T, Verizon & Sprint)
Cable TV ( Comcast, cablevision & Time-Warner )
TV (GE, Disney, Time-Warner, Viacom, CBS)
Automobiles ( Toyota, Honda, GM, Ford, VW, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, PSA, Hyundai )
Beer ( Miller, Coors & Anheuser-Busch )

DLS

Swaraaj, while some might want to say the era of the 1950s-1960s old-fashioned mammoth corporations and conglomerates (with Men Only in grey flannel suits, etc., directing empires of factories where unionized workers toiled in factories for one employer all their lives) is over, or that Silicon Valley paved a new path of "decentralization" and glamour attached to small businesses and their formation ("start-ups"), during decades where we had "mergers and acquisitions" (forming larger companies in addition to seeing "spin-offs" of parts of companies at the same time), large companies remain alive and well, both in size and scope (extent).

Lefties here in particular continue to have contempt for, say, Cargill, IBP, and Monsanto, and the oil companies, to begin with, in addition to more contemporary Big Foes such as restaurant and other store chains (McDonald's, Burger King, etc. from earlier; Starbucks contemporarily), the "Big Box" (chain) phenonemon (the hated SUV Fleet of the business world), most of all Wal-Mart (all of which are the targets of vandalism during anti-capitalism rallies by youth occasionally, such as to protest the G-8 at G-8 meetings), and currently, with our health care politics, Big Pharma and insurers.

And of course the biggest and most notorious organization of all is bigger and still notorious, as usual:

** government **, especially the federal government here in the USA.

Government is big, notorious, and is where features of the old Big Business world, including unions, incidentally, retain a significant presence, where the rule is more and more growth and presence in our economy and society, and whose revenues and bigger expenses, as well as gargantuan [unfunded] future liabilities dwarf anything in the private sector. (And that's without the additional vast powers that government has that businesses do not have, including forcing its "customers" to pay [taxes], true authority over its "customers" lives in every way [including the ability to end them], send them to war, and so on.) Government is the Biggest "business" of all, and the growth of government (the trend here in the USA every decade, despite frequent public antagonism and opposition) remains in full force. The incrementalist "ratchet" continues to be moved, in the same direction, every decade.

And then there's a current most-important big business case to consider in the USA right now.

The banks are the main subject of interest among the financial businesses that are involved with the bank bailout and with the conditions preceding (or leading to) the economic slump we are facing, and the banks are currently being managed by the Obama administration involving a process that has been resulting in consolidation of banks in this country (in addition to other concerns the public has).

TheMagicalSkyFather

DLS-so your argument is that big business is not as big as big gov so big gov is the only problem? Big gov can't go away if those industries want financial support in the future and they do. Two paths exist to ending the constant growth of big gov and big corps.
1. 100% gov funded elections and all "political donations" being tagged as what they are bribery and made illegal. This would fix the big corps issue and would shrink gov by getting rid of lobbying money but a large gov would remain.

2. Go all Ron Paul meaning truly libertarian and get rid of the military and prison industrial complex pull all our forces back to within our borders maintain our existing weaponry and shrink our standing army to special forces units and national gaurd units then end the war on drugs. Then once the federal gov has nothing to invest in state govs will have the same corruption problems but they will no longer be at the federal level.

CStanley

Size matters. (sorry, someone had to say it. ;-) )

Seriously though, increased corporate size is good up until a point and then it's not. There's economy of scale, efficiencies that come from corporate growth- but then the thing morphs like a malignant tumor that outgrows its blood supply and necroses. Too big to fail is dangerous from the standpoint of the taxpayers' liability, and also from the standpoint of the company being too big to effectively manage (which makes it more likely to fail and then the same size leads to the argument that society can't afford to let it fail.)

Progrowth policies need to focus on small to midsize firms where the growth is health and productive- not the other end of the spectrum which is what happens now, due to the unhealthy influence that big corps have on government policy.

DLS

"DLS-so your argument is that big business is not as big as big gov so big gov is the only problem?"

No. I'm saying that government is bigger, and it is or threatens obviously to be a bigger problem.

Note that the federal government in particular has been the central issue in modern times, as it has grown enormous and encroached routinely into state and local affairs, displacing the role and power of those governments and replacing it with Washington's. This in addition to growth for growth's sake if for no other justifiable "reason." Insofar as Big Business is concerned (that party which is often associated with lobbying and with influence in Washington; note, too, that it's in the easiest position normally to accomodate regulations and laws that Washington creates or changes, often with its complicity or collaboration, and naturally at the expense of smaller competitors), it and other problems we see now fundamentally arise because of this growth and centralization of power (which increases decade by decade) in and by Washington.

The dinosaur model of Big Business and Big Labor also included Big Government all along.

And what does regulation often constitute in effect or in practice? Old airline travel, for example, was a perfect example of this, but there's more and more to come, including under Obama: a managed cartel, the roots of which were formed in the 1930s, though with precedent beforehand (such as the federal direction of the railroads in the First World War, for example, which never quite disappeared!).

* * *

"but then the thing morphs like a malignant tumor that outgrows its blood supply and necroses"

I have long said that GM, for example, should have [been] broken up. Chevy could go it alone.

TheMagicalSkyFather

The one thing I learned during the W years was that fearing big gov does not actually help if big gov and big corps are one in the same and they are. I am on board shrinking big gov but only when we shrink big corps as well. They are an invention of gov in the first place.

HemmD

CS
I agree with your analysis, but not your solution. Policies are written by legislators who owe their prolonged political life to lobbyist money or the promise of a future job, so the no bid contracts as those with Haliburton et al assure big company supremacy. Couple that with the lack of true anti-trust legislation and enforcement, smaller companies face unfair competition and muted input into the current process

To drag out my pet dead horse for a few more smacks, change lobbying laws to remove legislation by the dollar, eliminate no-bid contracts, and pass/enforce stringent anti-trust statutes to give the little guy with a good idea a chance again.

HemmD

DLS
"No. I'm saying that government is bigger, and it is or threatens obviously to be a bigger problem."

Big business and big government has grown incestuously since world war 2. Eisenhower pointed out the military/industrial complex because he saw that incestuous relationship. Blaming one sibling is short-sighted.

If you want to quell the excesses you see in government, you have to quell the corporate quasi-government too.

TheMagicalSkyFather

HemmD- Thank you, you say it nicer than me I tend to come off like some cross between Goldwater and a bolshevik when I am just trying to point out that the corporate apologists are living in mighty pretty glass houses while they throw rocks at the gov that gives them no-bid contracts.

mikkel

Well cs, to follow up on Hemm's point and something we've discussed before, the government has effectively outsourced many of its duties to corporate giants under the belief that private industry is by definition more efficient (which the raw numbers show it's actually not true). It seems to me that you should support a re-publicization of government function, where even if you think government in general should shrink, it should also stop having large contracts that necessitate a megacorporation to fulfill.

GreenDreams

mikkel, I fully agree. As I pointed out on another thread, we have as many mercenaries as US troops in Afghanistan, but they cost 10 times as much. We have tens of thousands of contractors who do what FEMA used to do, and as DLS accidentally pointed out, much of the waste and fraud in Medicare was due to for-profit contractors, not to government employees.

DLS

"you have to quell the corporate quasi-government too"

I believe this metaphor is exaggerated, as opposed to examples like "private judges" in the case of the occasional extreme from junk lawsuits, private arbitration, with all other rights surrendered as a condition of employment. (Sign a waiver; if you have a problem later, you face corporate rent-a-judge.)

"Big business and big government has grown incestuously since world war 2."

It happend before that, and government has held the upper hand, of course -- the fascistic "managed cartel" model conceived for this country by Tugwell and other New Deal architects was put in place in the 1930s, during the New Deal. In fact, these people initially overreached and their most blatant and extreme efforts were quashed by the Supreme Court, which then still respected constitutional federalism and which recognized that the worst excesses at least (and at least until the Court had changed later in the 1930s) as (obviously) unconstitutional.

This included (using the common terms used then, and used in later years by Tugwell, for example, in his magnum opus on what the system of government and a new "modern" constitution should be like) the industrial and labor "codes" to which all had to conform. (Tugwell's proposed new constitution would bind them anyway even if they declined to participate, or accede to them.)

(the "fascist bird" of -- one early example of fascism here)

http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/...

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&...

This has since then been the typical model for what is sought with government regulation, for example, at least as the ideal, differing only in matter of degree and perhaps in style.

[The "tire" diagram from the book, "The Vampire Economy," is a classic piece of entertainment.]

http://pc.blogspot.com/2007/02/vampire-economy....

TheMagicalSkyFather

So was the New Deal socialism or fascism which are to opposed ideologies? They are just as opposing as communism and capitalism though communism is to socialism as fascism is to capitalism. Only in Glenn Becks fractured mind does fascism and socialism exist in the same world without them killing one another. Historically that is what they have done, socialism excludes extreme fascist and communist tendencies, fascism excludes all but fascism.

CStanley

I pretty much agree, mikkel, (only real disagreement is probably on the scale of that particular part of the problem- govt outsourcing- as compared to overall economic policy on corporate regulation, anti-trust law, etc.)

Of course I also see as the flip side, that anyone who agrees with my general points about size and corruptibility of govt- private partnerships should see that the exact same problems exist with GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and potentially with some possible incarnations of the 'public option'.) Which basically argues for the downshifting of expectations for what the 'government's duties' really should be, and for much better oversight over the programs that we do put in place to fulfill those duties- whether they be 'public' bureaucracies or outsourced private ones.

CStanley

the corporate apologists are living in mighty pretty glass houses while they throw rocks at the gov that gives them no-bid contracts.
But there's stone throwing too from govt officials who use populist rhetoric to posture as though they're protecting the little guy from those bad corporate lobbyists, even as the lobbyists are lining their campaign coffers. Why argue about who's the biggest hypocrite instead of just agreeing that the greed and power hunger of both of those groups is hurting society by promoting self dealing instead of good public policy?

CStanley

I agree with your analysis, but not your solution. Policies are written by legislators...

I don't really see where we're in disagreement. I didn't offer detailed solution, just pointed out that only policies which promote growth of smaller companies makes sense- not pro-big corp. You give an example of that with your statement about anti-trust statutes.

You're also adding in your pet solution about campaign finance reform- but IMO every attempt that has been made at that has backfired (McCain-Feingold, most notably.) In previous threads I pointed out that your wish for removing the money influence is really a pipe dream (for the same reason you started this comment with...legislators are the ones writing the laws, so although they pay lip service to the idea of reform they actually include plenty of loopholes since that benefits them as incumbents.)

I think ideas like term limits and campaign finance reform sound great in theory but never work. I believe the only realistic way to get to the goals of those kinds of policies is to educate voters- then we can decide when to limit a politician's term of office, and when to stop rewarding those whose policies are bought and sold to the highest bidders. That too may be a pipe dream, but I think it's the only solution that has any possibility of working.

TheMagicalSkyFather

CStanley-I do agree with that which is why I want all lobbying money out of politics. Whether that comes from shrinking the federal gov to a miniscule size or by making lobbying money as we know it illegal I do not care but only one party has ever even discussed one of those things and that is cutting off the money. I have seen the limiting of gov discussed but then those people grow gov more than the other party has so I only see one current escape route and that is why. Populist rhetoric is on both sides I am just pointing out that both sides are sending our money to their corporate bosses and only one side seems to see anything at all wrong with this, and then only in words. If the reps begin discussing getting rid of all lobbying money then I will begin to listen to them again but last I checked they actually thought this was a virtue.

CStanley

only one side seems to see anything at all wrong with this, and then only in words.

I actually see this as more dangerous than the opposite. Voters hear what they want to hear (Obama's administration so far has been a perfect example) and seem to give the benefit of doubt to those politicians who claimed to want more accountability and transparency, but when it doesn't happen there actually is no accountability. Those same voters seem to reflexively believe that the politicians who say what they want to hear are better than the other guys who won't pay lip service to the reforms they want to see, will hold those other guys accountable and will default to voting for the ones who are duplicitous because they believe the rhetoric without checking to see if there's actually any follow through.

mikkel

Yeah, I was going to expand it to include other aspects that weren't based on direct contracts (such as monetary policy and tax law) and I agree on GSEs. Actually, I will expand that further: I don't believe that the government should give monopoly access to any industry (cough telecom and utilities) nor backstop companies that are private.

Of course I think that governments should install and own infrastructure like power/communication lines and then let anyone pay provider fees that wants access. That means more fair and a better delineation of roles compared to the current state of selecting an individual company to give massive subsidies to and then handing them a monopoly (either directly or indirectly through implicit guarantees).

DLS

"So was the New Deal socialism or fascism which are to opposed ideologies?"

With the start of it in particular, it was fascistic, which is a form of socialism. The exact definition of "fascism" is fluid or fuzzy, as there have been variants throughout the world. There is no question here; it was a Kinder, Gentler form than what we had in Europe (the same is true for our leadership versus theirs). Our society or culture is different from Europe's -- less collectivist and less cultural and economic "stasis" (with a rigid hierarchy and an elite in government that runs a more coherent and collectivist society) as exists in Europe. (The words "statist" or "statism" often apply clumsily to us here in the USA, though they can easily be technically correct, because of this different culture and the different kind or degree of meaning it conveys about Europe rather than here in the USA.)

Integrating the private sector (with inherent bigness or fewness of businesses in a number of cases and its relative monopolistic power that is taken and applied) is part of what fascism is about, in addition to the authoritarian nature of it and the unifying nature of government and society (the true meaning of "corporatist," as in "corpus" or body, meaning everything is one, albeit complex, organism). (Tugwell in the 1970s, what he began seeking in the 1930s: "There will emerge an organic whole, controlled by advanced arts of administration" in addition to modern industrial and labor codes)

We've already had a preference for fascistic applications of socialism rather than the more "purist" form resembling Communism in the UK, for example, that featured nationalization and public ownership and provision of as much as possible, though here the two things blend (nationalized oil companies, power companies, public national airlines and railroads, and so on). What we often see is the "managed cartel" with varying degrees of presence and incidence of government control.

The reason is that the mainstream normally doesn't want the fully-public model and this is why such a thing is avoided, or tried partially and incrementally rather than completely at once.

Besides, as I have said before, what matters in the end really isn't so much the formality of ownership (and the headaches of small details and day-to-day operations). What actually matters is control. And controlling and directing or merely overseeing things frees the controllers to tend to larger issues.

This is what we're seeing with health care now, and the "public option" current entry point for displacing private control with increasing substitution public control of health care. This is also why taking the existing system and controlling it by Washington was also what was sought with the early 1990s openly fascistic HMO "alliance" based federal takeover attempt. "Medicare for All ASAP" causes the mainstream, nearly all the public, to recoil, so a more tortoise-like approach is sought.

TheMagicalSkyFather

CStanley- You just described politics in the US from 1970 on in a very elegant way and its true about both sides and parties, I say this as someone livid that I find myself on a side currently but Bush pushed me a bit over the edge and I began to investigate the Reagen rhetoric instead of just repeating it. The question is without taking the money out of politics what other options exist to fix what is agreed by all is a broken system? One side says take the money out while rolling in piles of that money but the other side is saying the only problem is when people need help and that does not pass the sniff test either.

DLS

"though here the two things blend (nationalized oil companies, power companies, public national airlines and railroads, and so on)"

Even nationalization here in the USA often is clumsily concealed by a euphemistic formal but also superficial device: the quasi-public or quasi-private corporation created and even chartered by the federal government rather than being a formally, openly public (government) company, if not simply kept nominally private. (At least keeping them formally private means they can still be sued, as well as have costs shifted onto them, as is done with Medicare versus private insurers currently.)

Related to this: far lefties, who have "red" leanings, often act in other ways: Ralph Nader is one at the forefront of what is actually openly fascistic (no matter what specific political objectives are demanded of companies that would fall prey to this, if achieved), the federal corporate charter (implying, as we have seen already with the Obama administration, more direct federal control of businesses).

This idea goes all the way back to the start of the shift of modern liberalism from libertarianiam to the authoritarian and interventionist version we have now, during the Progressive Era, when there was a good deal of sentiment in favor of public control of the private sector when not frequently replacing it with a public alternative. (Public control if not ownership of railroads, telephone, telegraph, etc.)

http://www.corporatepolicy.org/pdf/charters.pdf

TheMagicalSkyFather

DLS- So how do you fix that? Changing things around the edges does not work to trim the cancer at the center which is the bribery of public officials. Right nor left wants to actually end all of it and go back to a tiny federal gov and give all the power back to the states. So what exactly is the fix? Do you see a fix that is different than either a tiny fed or getting all lobbying money out of politics? If so what is it because I would like to have more than two options.

TheMagicalSkyFather

DLS-I was nodding my head right up until you got to Ralph Nader. You realize I hope that both parties are currently very pro-authoritarian, if you do not please re-read the history of the last eight years and things like "free speech zones."

GreenDreams

CS: "I believe the only realistic way to get to the goals of those kinds of policies is to educate voters- then we can decide"
yes, but
CS: "Voters hear what they want to hear "
Oops. You provided your own rebuttal. CS, treating commercial speech as "free speech" allows those with the biggest megaphone to use "the big lie" method to thwart any effort at educating voters. Repeat the lie often enough and people who are so inclined will believe it (e.g. birthers - 28% of Republicans believe them, "death panels" etc.)

CStanley

Mmm, sure, you're right, GD- that's why earlier I said that my own concept of how things 'should' be to get fixed may not work either. But what I mean by educating voters, I suppose, goes deeper- meaning, educate our kids better on critical thinking skills so that they don't fall for the propaganda.

And I'm sorry, but I really, really, don't think it's possible to NOT treat commercial speech as 'free speech.' I think the only way to counter 'bad speech' is with more free speech- rebut it, loudly, and frequently.

Consistent with my other opinions about corporate oligopoly though, I do think that media conglomerates are too big and powerful and should be broken up and regulated. And if the policies that I think are correct for general corporate oversight were to be implemented, I think eventually it would lead to fewer deep pockets that can fund massive propaganda efforts.

HemmD

DLS

I know you love to type yourt own words, but I suggest you link to accredited sites for an unbiased definition.
fas·cism

1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
a well known liberal mouthpiece.

monopoly

1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
same source.

Explain again how a group of businesses working in concert to keep prices - profits- escalating is a good thing for peope needing health care?

DLS

"DLS-I was nodding my head right up until you got to Ralph Nader. "

Really? Federal corporate charters and the related federal presence in addition to federal control of corporations fully fit with the integrated corporatist system that both Hitler and Mussolini as well as the New Dealers wanted. That's despite the more radical post-1960s objectives commonly sought by Ralph Nader and the Greens, the types who seek federal corporate charters (just look at the main Web page below of my source for a contemporary writeup about this -- see below) as well as other "shareholder" and government activist goals: "social responsibility," political objectives to which business should be directed, Israel divestiture by big government pension funds (another target of the activists in addition to corporations using federal charters), and so on.

http://www.corporatepolicy.org/

"In 1971, Nader founded the Corporate Accountability Research Group (CARG), directed by Green, to explore corporate power in its many aspects: antitrust enforcement, shareholders' rights, environmental pollution, corporate crime, and the need for federal chartering of corporations."

http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/13-CHA...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=1...

* * *

"Right nor left wants to actually end all of it and go back to a tiny federal gov and give all the power back to the states. So what exactly is the fix?"

Go back to a tiny federal gov and give all the power back to the states.

Naturally, New Dealer Tugwell objected: "They were easier to suborn." (Plus -- he, the urbanist -- they were often penurious and controlled by rural interests. [See activist ruling Baker v. Carr in the 1960s, too.]) Many would oppose smallness and devolution (in fact, a return to constitutional federalism, hopefully not only in letter but also in spirit) simply as a matter of principle (as they did after the 1994 elections in earnest, for example). Others would revive the decry, "Race to the bottom" as well as "Divide and conquer by corporations? In unity there is strength! United we stand..."

DLS

"So how do you fix that?"

Realistically, we have to tame it, to be vigilant against abuse and misuse of the power of regulation (or of legislation, which actually should be sought rather than regulation, which effectively transfers much legislative power to the Executive branch from the Congress where it belongs as well as consitutes a modern cop-out by Congress).

GreenDreams

DLS, that doesn't make sense. Congress legislates, agencies regulate based on the legislation, the courts decide if their regulations are consistent with the legislation. Modern cop-out? Like the 1937 Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, under which the FDA regulates 75% of consumables? Like the Federal Communications Act that empowers the FCC to regulate media? Those "modern cop-outs?"

TheMagicalSkyFather

DLS-How do you tame something that is already destroying the country at a very fast rate and is using the profits it makes off of a nations citizens to steal their money and direct their policies in their own best interests? How do you stop our politicians being ridden like money broncos by lobbyists? Short of actually cutting out lobbying of course. The "be vigilant" line I think can officially be viewed as an abject failure since about 1985 or so when both parties officially began to double down on ballooning deficits.

GreenDreams

I think a good start would be that any company receiving any tax revenue in any form is forbidden to use OUR money to lobby our government. If they want tax breaks or credits or contracts, no more spending it to influence our government. That should go for industry trade groups too.

DLS

"DLS, that doesn't make sense. Congress legislates, agencies regulate based on the legislation, the courts decide if their regulations are consistent with the legislation. Modern cop-out?"

Yes, so that often Congress can tend to its normal agenda of getting re-elected, while being able to sit back and engage in "Congressional review" at will in order to ensure that things aren't out of hand.

Are you aware of the nature of the regulations (with force of law) as well as their extent? Nobody can honestly and accurately claim that all of this falls under, say, the "reasonable and proper" clause.

Note: This is separate from the issue of how questionable it is that the federal government (and actually all government) has become as large and prevalent in our lives as it has over several decades.

* * *

"How do you tame something that is already destroying the country at a very fast rate and is using the profits it makes off of a nations citizens to steal their money and direct their policies in their own best interests?"

Aside from (reasonable, rational) regulation?

I would ban lobbying, to start. (Note: to prevent conflicts of interest and self-enrichment, such as by book deals, and appearance and speaking fees, for example, Tugwell's solution -- though also for other reasons -- was to have Senators serve for life and put their wealth into a trust.)

It's not an easy solution because of the inherent paradox: The best people to solicit and depend on for regulating or otherwise directing or controlling any business or industry are those in the affected business or industry themselves, for they know their field better than anyone outside it.

CStanley

GD- why not also the other way around though? Politicians who've received donations from a certain industry or special interest lobbying group ought to recuse themselves from legislating on the issues that affect that industry or group. Or at minimum, there should be much more transparency and disclosure (although I find that that isn't very helpful because partisan voters look at the donors for those that they oppose but fail to notice who is funding their own preferred candidates or they think that money is going for a good cause or to promote legislation that's in the public interest, even though their political opponents see it completely the other way around.)

DLS

"the courts decide"

That often becomes an effective illegitimate delegation, to the extent it becomes relied on and expected.

It and a related problem, judicial activism (not merely review, assuming such review is appropriate), has reached the point where the judiciary has wandered greatly from its proper role and this aids in the slipperiness of how things are done or conceived: decisions and actions can be rash and cynical at the same time (or crudely utilitarian), such as at a public meeting I observed several years ago: "Why should we wait to determine if we should do this, or have the authority to do this? We should proceed and write the law and implement it, and worry later if a court says it's okay or not."

TheMagicalSkyFather

DLS- I agree with sane and even limited regulation and an end to lobbying.

GreenDreams

CS, absolutely. I want to eliminate the influence of money on politics. Disclosure doesn't work as well, because as we've seen, legislators actually use their "pork" numbers in fundraising.

GreenDreams

[court review of regulation] often becomes an effective illegitimate delegation, to the extent it becomes relied on and expected.

I don't agree with that. Legislation can't be as specific as regulation. For example, in the FDA case, someone must be "qualified by training and experience" to do something according to the legislation. As one who opposes 1200 page laws, you have to see that for Congress to specify the degrees and experience level needed for every job in a food, drug or cosmetic company would make the legislation absurdly complex. The same applies to nearly every law. It just isn't possible for every detail to be legislated up front by lawyers. You need the doctors at NIH, scientists at FDA, NOAA, communications experts at FCC etc. to flesh out the details.

blog comments powered by Disqus