LemonGrenade
Member
I'm not fond of either but I guess, as Solidarity said, at least government comes paying lip-service to democratic ideals; business is unabashedly tyrannical.
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Big Government or Big Business?
- Thread starter MysticSang'ha
- Start date
I'm curious about personal experiences....who here has been oppressed by tyrants in government or business.
I've had bad experiences with both, but nothing compares with having to plan to move to Canuckistan (til Nixon cancelled the draft) in order to avoid either going to prison for years or murdering people who would want to murder me in Viet Nam. No business has the power to compel me to jail or war. But I'm managing to avoid doing business with any big corporation I really want to avoid.
I've had bad experiences with both, but nothing compares with having to plan to move to Canuckistan (til Nixon cancelled the draft) in order to avoid either going to prison for years or murdering people who would want to murder me in Viet Nam. No business has the power to compel me to jail or war. But I'm managing to avoid doing business with any big corporation I really want to avoid.
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Personally, I have definitely had more problems with government than with business, no doubt about that.
In part because so darned much here in Brazil is controlled by the government in one way or another.
In part because so darned much here in Brazil is controlled by the government in one way or another.
Any bigger organization is more worrisome because the checks and balances slowly slip away whether it is government, private, or family owned. You'd think the government would be safer but corruption can be found most anywhere even in the law itself so Government being big might be more worrisome.
LemonGrenade
Member
That's a good point, I didn't think of that. Suppose if I had lived through Nazi Germany then I would be saying without a doubt that government is the more tyrannical. However in my time, in this country, it is business -and when speaking of the tyranny of corporations I'm not referring to individual corporations but rather to the whole sprawling mass. They are underpinned by a common doctrine and there is little sense in distinguishing between big and small.
Not that I disagree with your opinion about government (feminist and queer rights activist and all). But can we avoid Monsanto? I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to get out from under its thumb, and how to petition their lobbying efforts in food and commodity corn ownership.
There's also Blackwater USA (now Academi), Halliburton, WalMart, and their environmental and human rights impacts felt around the globe. People don't have to be customers of these companies to be highly negatively impacted by these companies when they are given free reign to run business as they see fit.
Sure! I buy my glyphosphate from other manufacturers too.
But are we really tyrannized by Monsanto? How have you specifically suffered at their hands?
Bear in mind that Blackwater's sins were committed at the behest of our government. Moreover, had they not done them (as private contractors), the US government's military would've. Would you really put WalMart in the category of a country which has conquered other countries, murdered millions of people, including its own citizens (eg, PRC, USSR, Nazis, Pol Pot), which takes a major fraction of citizens' income under threat of imprisonment? Besides, many Walmarts have Subways in them....but government won't make me a BLT.
Many folk believe that big business is just plain bad, & at times they are. But at least they are not a single central authority with ultimate power over us. Government is a different creature in that its tyranny can be inescapable. They run the courts, own the cops, declare war, take our money involuntarily & provide us with civil liberties at their pleasure....or not. When companies go bad, the damage is limited. When government goes bad (eg, N Korea), it devastates nearly all. It seems that most of the disagreement here is due to some having faith in government to be a cure for keeping big business in line. They cannot face the potential evil inherent in this savior, whose great power to serve us is also great power to oppress us.
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In what way does their sprawling harm you?
Note that they "sprawl" because government not only grants them this ability, but actually regulates the manner in which they do so. In my field, I see that businesses must obtain government's permission, must pay for permission to open, must design its facility to meet government criterea, & must operate within government's many many rules.
But still, big business cannot tax you, draft you, compel you to murder, record every phone call (warrants no longer needed), tell you who you may marry, or use flashing lights to pull you over & beat/rape you. Government is far more powerful. Let's look at N Korea. They have no companies, only government. Where is tyranny greater than that giant penal colony?
Leave it to say, bigger is not better.
Not exactly. Blackwater was never one company. The oldest part of the company was what is now Academi Training Center, which Prince started as a training place for east coast seals. They made targets under another company, their contractors were hired through yet another company, and there were at least two more (the last time I was there their APC was on display and I believe that was another company). I believe Academi does still have "official" (i.e., approved and on record) status in some regions for high risk security jobs, but
1) Almost all of their contractors also work for other companies, because they're almost all 1 person companies like Black Ice Security Services
and
2) They no longer have the share of the international private security sector they once did. Currently, the DOD employs Ares Group, SekTek, American Security Programs, Dyncorp, Global Integrated Security, Global Strategies Group, Aegis Group, L-3 National Security Solutions, Kroll, Triple Canopy, and finally a lot of "Miscellaneous Foreign Contractors" who all somehow have companies without names but are hired for things like "Support-Professional-Other" and all share the same address (2011 Crystal Dr. ste 911, Arlington VA).
BAE, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, and those guys are very different. Not only do they mostly manufacture, they're also linked into universities and interdisciplinary research groups like the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. Often enough, the same people who are behind your smartphones, navigation systems, computers, etc., are also developing better and better learning algorithms for unmanned aircraft, are in nanotechnology and materials sciences making newer more sophisticated armor, or lighter small arms, or the rifle that''s going to replace the m16/m4 system (and has been "going to replace" it for a decade or more), etc. Oh, and they're also the PhDs behind detection devices used in airports or other large public areas. A major problem that was only fairly recently addressed was that so many current detection devices didn't work for the IEDs that were used in the US and abroad. Virtually all high explosives (nitroglycerin, RDX, Ammonium Nitrate, TNT, HMX, PETN, etc.) share one essential ingrediant: nitric acid. In fact, they all rely on a triple nitration process. So that's what everything from sensors to dogs were able to detect.
Peroxide based HEs don't use Nitric acid. Of course, they're extremely unstable and they break down quickly (which is why no military uses them), but the reason you can't carry liquids onto a plane isn't just thanks to that guy who was caught trying to make a bomb on the plane. It's also because of he was trying to use a peroxide based explosive. But once again, the same people who manufacture arms, military aircraft, etc., are the ones who funded and/or developed things like portable sensing equipment for this class of explosives so that they can be detected.
There's also the fact that it's hard to know whether or not you are a customer of many of these companies, because unless you have access to Mergent, LexisNexis, or some similar company database chances are you'll have a pretty difficult time trying to track down who owns what and how they're connected to products x, y, and z via grants to labs a, b, & c.
But I'm pretty sure it's all owned by Google and iCult (apple).
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LemonGrenade
Member
I don't think their sprawling harms anyone. I said 'sprawling mass' to differentiate between the individual corporation which can be avoided, like you said, and corporations en masse which can't.
In my view, in modernity, so entwined are government & corporate power that trying to assign responsibility for their respective behaviours is often a vain endeavour. The orchestration of warfare, the erosion of civil liberties, and so on; there is seamless complicity.
Sure, we can find examples of atrocious behaviour all over the place but, personally, I never cease to be struck by the malady at the heart of corporate matters - it's very similar to that of many a religion - namely the elevation of some god-like-thing to a stature above one's fellow man.
For your government, you get a vote. You also get a say in what your government does in other ways, from petitions for traffic calming on your street to the public consultation for major infrastructure projects. You could run yourself if you want, or put yourself forward to be on an advisory committee.
OTOH, since the British government owns ~80% of RBS, even if you bought up all the shares you could, you couldn't buy a say in how the company runs.
The government is the reason that no business has the power to do any of that.
Mercy Not Sacrifice
Well-Known Member
Exactly! Government reserves tyrannical powers for its sole usage.
(Although it will extend some to mortgage lenders.)
Shermana
Heretic
I agree with this.
Big government is more forgivable.
Usually when horror stories of "Big government" are brought up like Ceausecu's Romania or the USSR or North Korea, government corruption itself is not really the major problem per se as it is the attempt to deal with large scale economic problems and the social consequences of drastic actions that are otherwise meant for arguably good large-scale intent. In other words, the problem is in the execution. And within such systems, it can be very difficult for individual private interests to be able to manipulate the government, except in local provincial situations.
With big corporations however, they have the power to monopolize and manipulate the market. They can do far more damage to the powers of supply and demand than the most centralized planning board can. They can slip their hands into the pockets of politicians whenever they can to ensure their will gets imposed on the people. There's a reason why government subsidies to corporations are higher than welfare payments and food stamps.
As Caladan says, when a corporation gets "big", they almost always seem to decay in quality and standards. This does not necessarily translate to the government, as large-scale government programs have a generally efficient track record in the USA, with administrative costs being fairly low and target goals often reached. (The recent Stimulus being more of an exception to the rule, which is worthy of its own discussion).
"Big government" seems to be a scare word more so than a reality, and examples where it's highlighted as a threat to people's freedoms and liberties are often taken out of context, with the benefits and changes from previous societies ignored. For every Ceausescu horror story there's a Norway and Denmark success story. Big government can regulate Big Business when the system is properly maintained, but big business can and will jump on the government's shoulders and start barking orders whenever it can. "Tyranny" is not necessarily an inevitable outcome of big business, but it's seemingly inevitable when big business gets its hooks into government, let alone when it gets its hooks into the economy through cartels and monopolies and trusts.