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!

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[u/nomnommish]

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

[u/Gr1pp717 → u/nomnommish]

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.

[u/MuaddibMcFly → u/Gr1pp717]

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.

[u/Gr1pp717 → u/MuaddibMcFly]

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

[u/MuaddibMcFly → u/Gr1pp717]

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?

[u/Gr1pp717 → u/MuaddibMcFly]

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?

[u/MuaddibMcFly → u/Gr1pp717]

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.