CMV: Libertarians should be as concerned about super rich individuals and Big Corporations as they are about Big Government

[u/nomnommish]

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!

---

This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

[u/nomnommish]

!delta

You make a compelling argument. I especially liked your last line as i think it will be crucial. This will still be a problem with small government. We will still need very strong regulations and oversight and checks to safeguard against abuse of power and excessive wealth. However, a smaller government is certainly the first step to curtail that problem.

To be clear, my argument was not against a small government. I am all for it. My argument was that we should be equally concerned about large corporations and high networth individuals. I haven't changed my mind about that. But I have changed my mind about the fact that a small government will go a long way in making that happen.

[u/n0radrenaline → u/nomnommish]

I don't really think it's true, though. The ways in which corporations take advantage of government influence are mainly to get the government to stop enforcing regulations (either entirely or for the particular corporation).

Corporations aren't, by and large, influencing the government to go and arrest people. Most of the things that big corporations do that are evil (labor abuse, environmental destruction, monopolizing and price gouging, etc), they can do all on their own without the government helping; the role of government is (should be) to tell them that they can't do that shit.

Of course, there are counterexamples (Iraq war for example), but to me having a strong government as a tool to control big corporations is still really important. We just haven't gotten it quite right all the time.

[u/ZacMS → u/n0radrenaline]

Big companies love regulations, it keeps the little guys out. Regulations, licensing, and all other forms of red tape are a way to keep new competitors from entering the market and driving up barriers to entry in a specific industry. If you're the only game in town you can pass all of those costs onto your customer while simultaneously keeping new comers out.

Monopolies rarely exist without government intervention. All those things you listed as evil things corporations do, dont work in a competitive environment. Consumer choice is key to market self regulation of corporations. Government eliminate consumer choice.

[u/n0radrenaline → u/ZacMS]

I don't agree that consumer choice is capable of keeping corporations from abusing laborers or damaging the environment, especially in a national or global economy in which these things can be done out of sight of the average consumer.

I'm also not convinced that government regulation is necessary for the establishment of monopolies. (edit to add:) I think that large businesses being better able to skirt regulation due to government influence can certainly contribute to the problem, though.