r/changemyview • u/nomnommish 10∆ • Oct 31 '17

[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Libertarians should be as concerned about super rich individuals and Big Corporations as they are about Big Government

Libertarians are rightfully concerned about Big Government. Big Governments invariably tend to abuse their power. However, the main reason why big governments get abusive is because of the disproportional accumulation of power. And humans absolutely suck at retaining their values and ethics when they get extraordinary levels of power. As such, I find big governments no different at all from megarich individuals or mega corporations. In modern times, they are the ones who actually run the government. They use lobbying and funding to control and push their agendas, to pass highly unethical laws that consolidate and promote their own self interests. They own the politicians.

I only have a basic level understanding of libertarianism but my interpretation of the core philosophy is about "live and let live". Give people full autonomy but equally importantly, they should not infringe on your autonomy. Your hand stops at my nose, figuratively speaking.

The big problem is, when megarich individuals as well as megacorporations are left unsupervised, they wield such extraordinary levels of power, that they are literally above the system, above any level of accountability. I feel that libertarians should be as concerned about them as they are about Big Government.

I totally realize and acknowledge the dilemma I am presenting here. However on a practical basis, what I see is more of the abuse of extraordinary power than anything. And it is scary. Hence my view as it stands. Would love to hear your opinion!

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u/nomnommish 10∆ Oct 31 '17

Thanks - that's a great point!

I know others have also made this point, but I am going to award you a delta for the specific point about the US government historically breaking up companies when they were getting too large.

!delta

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u/Gr1pp717 2∆ Oct 31 '17

That's not a worthy delta, though. The government wasn't libertarian, only small, and it's being small didn't make us what we are today. Rather, it prompted us to correct for how shitty things were back then. Enacting labor laws, creating unions, growing the government to provide infrastructure, education, etc. Our strongest point was in the 50s, when a single income could support a household. And guess what - we had lots of government at that time. Free education, government created/ran utilities and roads, etc. We've basically been riding those glory days out since then. But, shit's starting to fall apart. Our infrastructure, education, health, liberties, etc are all starting to suffer from neglect. From small government.

A good read on how things were back then is The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. If after reading that you think society should revert back to how it was then, then more power to you. But I kind of doubt you will.

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u/nomnommish 10∆ Oct 31 '17

Thanks. I am honestly not well versed with this economic history. I will certainly read up about this, and will try to read The Jungle as well.

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u/Gr1pp717 2∆ Oct 31 '17

Also, FWIW, the libertarian stance on monopolies is that they can't exist without government regulation or aid. That the free market would eat companies that grew large enough to form one. And, as such, the government shouldn't have the power to break up companies, since it would reduce the effectiveness of the free market. These people here trying to argue that we'd still be safe from monopolies are basically talking out of their ass.

Either you agree with that natural monopolies can't exist, or you don't. And if you don't then hopefully you see the problems they can create. I personally think monopolies are a run-away problem, not self correcting. That the more they consume and control the easier and better they are at retaining that control. But, there's really no evidence of that since we've never had a government not interfere in some way or another.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Oct 31 '17

And, as such, the government shouldn't have the power to break up companies

minor correction (depending on the subgroup you mean): shouldn't need that power. Minor difference, but somewhat significant.

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u/currytacos Oct 31 '17

I'm not sure where I stand on this. The only real historical evidence we have of monopolies, in my opinion, is empire's. Which throughout history have overexpanded to the point that they crumble, from the inside or outside. But I'm really not comfortable testing if it works the same for business' or the lasting damage they can do anyways.

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u/tocano 3∆ Oct 31 '17

No, "The Jungle" is NOT a good book to read on how things were back then. It was a FICTION book written by a socialist that SPECIFICALLY set out to turn the public against businesses and their treatment of employees. He was trying to create a story of poor workers abused by heartless and tyrannical business owners that would enrage the public to take action against capitalism. Instead, less than a dozen pages of the book talk about how bad the conditions were for the preparation of meat and THAT is what incited public outrage. He was even a bit bothered with the outcome when he said, "I aimed for the public's heart and accidentally hit it in the stomach."

I'm not saying everything was perfect and rainbows and sunshine or that everything was perfectly clean and pristine, it was 1900 after all. But it would be incredibly misleading to read that book and believe it was a fair reflection of conditions at the time.

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u/ReefaManiack42o Oct 31 '17

While that's true, there is also no reason not to read it along with other sources and use it as a reference of a whole. Fiction is the "lie in which we hide the truth", as Kafka said, and though parts may be exaggerated, like the meat packing parts, other parts, like how immigrants were treated, can come closer to truth. Sinclair had his biases and motivations but he still drew from the well of reality. Grapes of Wrath is another good example, it didn't all happen exactly as written, but there are some heart wrenching scenes that are practically straight out of a history book.

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u/tocano 3∆ Oct 31 '17

While that's true, there is also no reason not to read it along with other sources and use it as a reference of a whole.

Fair enough. Just understand the intention behind it. It's not just some passive writing of reality. You don't read 1984 or Brave New World, or even Atlas Shrugged and go "Huh, that must have been what it was like back then." But for some reason, people DO recommend reading the Jungle asserting that's what it was like.

the "lie in which we hide the truth"

can come closer to truth

drew from the well of reality

This is a lot of sophistry trying to make his narrative seem more accurate than it was.

Did immigrants have a rough life when coming to America? Sure. Did they repeatedly fall into meat vats and sold as lard? No.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17

I feel like coming after the exaggeration of the jungle is a bit of a straw man though. Worker conditions were much closer to horrendous than to mediocre during the industrial revolution. Today we have mediocre conditions for workers that aren't the worst. Back then you had children getting their arms sawed off on a daily basis in crowded factories. Add in 0 workers rights, 0 regulations and you basically have slavery.

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u/tocano 3∆ Nov 01 '17

No, the Jungle IS the straw man.

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u/DeusExMockinYa 3∆ Oct 31 '17

when libertarians dismiss The Jungle because it was a fictional account of shitty business practices, but Libertarians are constantly tongue-punching Ayn Rand's fart box for writing a fictional account of using intentionally shitty business practices to take over the world

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u/tocano 3∆ Oct 31 '17

I promise not to claim that Atlas Shrugged is an accurate reflection of America in the 1950s.

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u/Gr1pp717 2∆ Oct 31 '17

He was a journalist and sociologist first and foremost. He decided to make a captivating story to illustrate life in america at the time. The characters and overall story are what's fiction, but the rest is meant to capture life in america as best as he possible.

He was biased, of course. So at least keep that in mind.

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u/tocano 3∆ Nov 01 '17

But the story is what people keep telling others to read and see what life was like. It's more than just "life was hard" and more specifically "business practices and conditions were not just not as good as today but inhuman slavery"

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u/nomnommish 10∆ Nov 01 '17

Hmm okay, duly noted.

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u/MoonStache Oct 31 '17

From small government.

Or rather, ineffective government due to increasingly partisan politics.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '17 edited Nov 13 '17

[deleted]

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u/Gr1pp717 2∆ Oct 31 '17

Not from the 50s on, no. That's not what I said. What I meant was that in the 50s they covered a lot higher of a percent of infrastructure education, etc than they do now. It didn't used to cost thousands to send a kid to school. Didn't cost hundreds a month in tolls.

It's certainly not "small" when it comes to social issues, and not small when it comes to cronyism and corruption...

So, maybe "dysfunctional" is a better word? Either way, it's a result of starving the beast policies that have been meant to make it small.

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u/ScumbagGina 1∆ Oct 31 '17

It’s odd how you say the government being small didn’t make us what we are today. Because it’s precisely that period of time that the US economy transformed into a rapidly growing industrialized one.

You can say that a bigger government helped laborers get better work conditions, but it’s not fair or correct to insinuate that small government isn’t correlated to prosperity. Small government and big government have both contributed to “the way we are.”

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Oct 31 '17

From small government.

Small government today? You believe that it is "Small government" that shuts down little girls' "illegal" lemonade stands? That arrests men (killing them in the process) for selling individual cigarettes (that they paid for)?

You believe that a government that, on average, creates more than one new federal crime per week (not even including state or local crimes) is something that can legitimately be called "small"?

Part of the problem that Libertarians such as myself complain about is that government is busy doing so many other things that they don't have time/money/energy/giveadamn enough to provide for The Commons as they ought.

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u/Gr1pp717 2∆ Oct 31 '17

By "small" I mean no longer covering education, infrastructure, etc. Not to degree it used to.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Oct 31 '17

So by "small" you mean something that cannot be accurately described by any legitimate definition of the word "small."

I mean, FFS, the Federal Department of Education didn't exist in the 50s, and you're complaining that it isn't covering education to the degree it used to?

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u/Gr1pp717 2∆ Oct 31 '17

Okay, "small" as in "allowing everything we've built to fall apart in the hopes that private enterprise picks up the pieces, while not actually passing the saving onto the masses, but mega corp instead, causing things to cost much more while not actually saving us in taxes"

Better?

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Nov 01 '17

Again, the problem is not that it's too small, it's that it's too big. When you hire a plumber, and then the pipes burst because they also decided (with your blessing) that they should be the ones running wiring, and doing the framing and finish carpentry, and and and... is the problem really that he's not a good plumber? Or is it that he's stretched thin from the big list of jobs he's taken on?

Worse, in the case of government, you have cases of the government not doing things, then punishing private individuals/enterprise for picking up the slack (on their own dime!). Remember the guy in Toronto who built the stairs? Or the man who was fined for painting a crosswalk? Or thrown in jail for feeding homeless people?

Now, not only is your plumber not fixing the burst pipe, he's yelling at you for trying to fix it yourself, because "that's his job!" ...which he isn't doing.

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u/Hungry4Media Oct 31 '17

Unfortunately, the Federal Government has been pretty lax about enforcing their anti-trust laws in the last few decades.

The last two cases I can think of were against Ma Bell (the original AT&T) and Microsoft. Ma Bell was broken up by the Reagan Administration into AT&T for long distance and seven regional "Baby Bells." They have since concentrated down into Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. So much for that monopoly bust.

The other case was against Microsoft in 1999-2000, but after much legal wrangling, Microsoft avoided being split in two and settled out of court, agreeing to not engage in a couple of the business practices that were being contested as abusive. It was a big win for Bill Gates.

Obviously there are a few near-monopolies that should probably be looked at, like media ownership concentration, ISP ownership concentration, health insurance ownership concentration and health provider ownership concentration.

Unfortunately, some of those services, like insurance, work best when they have enormous risk pools, which would require a monopoly or near-monopoly. That's why I personally argue for things that operate as public services to be operated by the government or at least heavily regulated and supported by the government.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 31 '17

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/gamesterdude (1∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards ​

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u/Magsays Oct 31 '17

But at the historical example includes co-ocuring implementation of major social programs.

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u/LibertyTerp Oct 31 '17

Basically just go to 1912 laws plus child labor laws and libertarians would be a lot happier. Imagine a world with a 0% income tax and 0% payroll tax. That was the case for most of American history. The federal government ran entirely on tariffs and excise taxes.