Rand Paul and Silicon Valley's Shifting Political Climate

SonicSpike sends this story from NY Magazine: Rand Paul appears to be making a full-court press for the affections of Silicon Valley, and there are some signs that his efforts are paying off. At last week's Sun Valley conference, Paul had one-on-one meetings with Thiel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ... Next weekend, Paul will get to make his case yet again as the keynote speaker at Reboot, a San Francisco conference put on by a group called Lincoln Labs, which self-defines as "techies and politicos who believe in promoting liberty with technology." He'll likely say a version of what he's said before: that Silicon Valley's innovative potential can be best unlocked in an environment with minimal government intrusion in the forms of surveillance, corporate taxes, and regulation. “I see almost unlimited potential for us in Silicon Valley,” Paul has said, with "us" meaning libertarians.

Today's Silicon Valley is still exceedingly liberal on social issues. But it seems more skeptical about taxes and business regulation than at any point in its recent history. Part of this is due to the rise of companies like Uber and Tesla Motors, blazing-hot start-ups that have been opposed at every turn by protectionist regulators and trade unions, in confrontations that are being used by small-government conservatives as case studies in government control run amok.

Comments

Re: Gots to find more ways to avoid taxes

[JWW]

The idea that the largest most powerful entity to ever exist on this planet is only ever just trying to be benevolent and good, but is in danger because some people think it is too large is laughable. The corruption and regulatory capture you speak of are only possible BECAUSE the modern US government is an enormous leviathan.

The idea that libertarians would instantly reduce the government to nothing if they took power is laughable. Over 100 years if progressive bullshit have given us this opressive monster, it'll take more than just a few libertarians gaining power to turn our government into something reasonable again.

Re:Gots to find more ways to avoid taxes

[Curunir_wolf]

Power concentrated in the hands of organisations such as multi-national corporations (or even less omniscient entities such as car dealership networks) is no better than being in the hands of an autocratic and abusive regime.

That's not necessarily true. For one thing, you're talking about multiple corporations that compete against each other, providing a better balancing of power than a single entity with unlimited power. Also, governments retain a monopoly on violence. So corporations might have a lot of financial power, but they can't put you in jail or kill you like governments can. They generally can't spy on you, either, unless you're using their stuff - not true with government which injects itself into the very infrastructure of all communication channels, which they license and regulate.

If the rule of law is working, maybe government is a better choice. But that is breaking down severely these days.