Post by anarch on Apr 5, 2009 5:02:30 GMT -5
I see a lot of you have stated your opposition to capitalism, consumerism, materialism, etc. Now I'm not a fan of the state-corporatist mess we have now, but we have to remember who the real target of our little group is.
Many of you seem so afraid of corporations taking over that you are willing to endure the existence of the state. And while you can have a state but no corporations, you cannot have a corporation without a state. Eliminating the state eliminates both problems.
A real free market has never existed in the history of the United States. What we have, and have always had, is corporatism, the union of business and the state. This is not a 50/50 partnership, however. The corporations might control the money, but the government has the guns. Money is just an idea. Bullets are not. If the government wanted corporations gone tomorrow, they would be.
Corporations are only corporations, in the first place, because of state law that allows this imaginary entity to be treated as if it were a real person. They only grow to their gigantic size, despite their massive bureaucracy and inefficiencies, by taking advantage of state-granted monopolies or subsidies. These can be in the form of copyrights, patents, publicly funded highways and railroads, or unnecessary regulations which large, established companies can endure but small start-ups cannot. Corporations only come to power without government help. Even in the supposedly Laissez-Faire era, the government was there to prop up the corporations, and even help shoot striking workers.
We can replace corporations with worker-owned firms, where every laborer picks his own hours and wage, and hiring and firing are done by vote. This idea has been tried before, very successfully. Though it might sound socialist, the idea is very free-market based, as it merely extends property rights to more people, giving them a real incentive to work hard instead of just enough to keep their job.
Anyway, my point: don't waste energy fighting corporations. They're just profiteers, symptoms of the disease. Eliminate the state, and you eliminate the corporations.
Many of you seem so afraid of corporations taking over that you are willing to endure the existence of the state. And while you can have a state but no corporations, you cannot have a corporation without a state. Eliminating the state eliminates both problems.
A real free market has never existed in the history of the United States. What we have, and have always had, is corporatism, the union of business and the state. This is not a 50/50 partnership, however. The corporations might control the money, but the government has the guns. Money is just an idea. Bullets are not. If the government wanted corporations gone tomorrow, they would be.
Corporations are only corporations, in the first place, because of state law that allows this imaginary entity to be treated as if it were a real person. They only grow to their gigantic size, despite their massive bureaucracy and inefficiencies, by taking advantage of state-granted monopolies or subsidies. These can be in the form of copyrights, patents, publicly funded highways and railroads, or unnecessary regulations which large, established companies can endure but small start-ups cannot. Corporations only come to power with
We can replace corporations with worker-owned firms, where every laborer picks his own hours and wage, and hiring and firing are done by vote. This idea has been tried before, very successfully. Though it might sound socialist, the idea is very free-market based, as it merely extends property rights to more people, giving them a real incentive to work hard instead of just enough to keep their job.
Anyway, my point: don't waste energy fighting corporations. They're just profiteers, symptoms of the disease. Eliminate the state, and you eliminate the corporations.