So if you don't allow any individual to gain more money than any other individual, then what do you get?
democracy.
What do you do to those pesky folks trying to make more money than others?
capitalists.
Who determines who "has enough" and who doesn't.
wealth cap. reach it, you have accomplished whatever can accomplished financially, and can be free to do whatever you want to do next.
There is a REASON that Communism attracts the kind of despotic, tyrannical leaders it does. Because it REQUIRES control of EVERYONE.
bullshit.
communism doesnt attract despotic, tyrannical leaders. it has been such in this world's history, because communist revolutions happened (naturally) in places where the populace was the most oppressed. namely, eastern europe. china. cuba. some of these had a culture of oppression and repression going back to 3000 BC. eastern europe for example, has been the source of a lot of incursions and occupations of brutal nature, going south towards middle east, balkans and anatolia. not to mention all kinds of migrations of barbaric nature towards west during roman empire and later.
in short, these WERE the places where culture was oriented towards repression. and today its no different - capitalism and democracy came, but russia is much more oppressive than soviet times. mafia just kills whomever it wants, and nothing happens.
in countries where the elite was more careful in herding the populace, and giving them bones, revolutions didnt happen. britain, namely. even in france, the elite did not manage the herds well, and this resulted in 1848 revolts. then, when capitalist mechanics were invented, all the elite translated themselves into new capitalists, as a natural result of the capital process. then there was no need for any revolutions anymore, for everyone was supposedly free, free to make money, but only could make as much money as the money they had. except for the rare inventor and entrepreneur, which never posed any threat to established order because they eventually joined them.
places which did not have a brutal repressive culture, or, had a freedom oriented culture, have been VERY successful with socialism, on the other hand. examples include scandinavian countries, which have lived, and living better than any given american, with more freedoms than someone on top of the ladder in washington dc, can dream of.
by that logic, and by any logic, the only way to prevent it, is collective ownership AND participation of all people in all aspects of life.
you cannot make one aspect of life totally equal, democratic, and another totally medieval, feudal, and expect things to work out. because, one will affect the other.
there will be no free trade with a feudal medieval political system, and there will be no democracy with a feudal medieval financial system.
because, any group that is able to gain more power than others, will rule that aspect of life, and then will infiltrate/dominate the other through their powerbase in that aspect.
I think it is large, bloated governments that allow corruption to thrive. If the left hand doesn't know (and can't know) what the right hand is doing, it's much easier to get what you want done. A small, open government would be more effective and less corrupt.
these are all ayn rand bullshit. which can only persuade people who are not learned in history enough, in order to know enough about feudalism, its advent, its progress and its demise in history.
i would recommend you to start researching medieval history. you will find that, almost all of its aspects except requirement of being highborn, are identical with capitalist market system.
hell, you will even find that, in medieval britain, it was possible for any serf to become a lord by acquiring enough land through marriages or buyouts. being highborn wasnt even a requirement.
and incidentally, most of the basics of the capitalist system comes from britain, and its colonies, carrying the same heritage.
A limited government doesn't have the power to keep a competitor off your turf. Any corporation that becomes so large and evil as to oppress the people will find itself with a competitor that will exploit the peoples disdain for it
"Any feudal lord that becomes so powerful and evil as to oppress the people will find himself an enemy that will exploit the people's disdain for himself"
the above sentence had not been a reality in middle ages. the stronger, ruled. it wont be a reality in corporatism at any point in future.
But we (the US) ARE a capitalist country. We've always been one...it has been what has propelled us to be a superpower.
rich land resources, huge immigration in early days, and in the 20th century, europe getting destroyed in the world war and u.s. making all the countries except eastern bloc into a dominion of its own to use as a colonial market propelled you to being a superpower.
and, that didnt even happen with normal mechanics of 'free' market and capitalism either. in 3rd world countries, approx 12+ puppet dictators were installed, all of whom which are now wanted under crimes against humanity, due to the genocides they committed. (some already convicted in jail).
in 1st and 2nd world countries, various organizations were set up, in order to make sure that those countries stayed 'true to western ideals'.
engaging in assassinations of intellectuals who were harmful to nato interests (as a proxy, u.s.), setting up scandals to discredit and neutralize u.s. opposing parties and groups, and even setting up fake terrorist groups which would claim to be following ideologies u.s. didnt want to spread, and engage in actions that would estrange society from those ideologies through bombings, assassinations, terrorist acts.
its a shitty read.
but, this was inevitable. capitalist system is basically neo feudalism - in feudal times, only the noble born was allowed to rule. now, everyone is allowed to be nobles. but, becoming a noble is harder than feudal times, and any noble has to be subservient to existing aristocracy.
it was inevitable that such situation would lead to veiled fascism, as you have seen in the above examples.
Hell, looking at TV today...the socialistic tendencies of many European countries, the debt they have incurred (I know we're fsked with regard to debt too) is having a serious downward effect on world markets.
irrelevant. and misinformed.
those socialist european countries STILL do much more than how u.s. is doing. they always did far better than how u.s. did in the last decade, even when u.s. was in apex of its american dream.
in addition, u.s. with its capitalist system, is basically owned by china now. it incurred that debt, while using its military and resources to propagate the interests of various private interests inside united states. so, your people got exploited, for your minority elite.
and, a noticeable amount of that money has been spent for destabilizing and weakening anything that was seen as harmful to the interests of that private elite, abroad. this includes those socialist countries.
however, even in this case, those socialist countries are in a position to be able to pay their debt. u.s. isnt. while many countries in europe have provided major funds to the bank bailout without even blinking, even in this state, united states had to print money like a banana republic in order to provide its bailout money, for its sunken banking system.
financial power, the control over resources and services that make up life, IS the power. government's power would always pale compared to that, because financial power would always be able to effect its way into the government system eventually, and 'corrupt' your government. it is a foregone conclusion.
even in a place where corruption would be totally prevented, the financial power would be able to make its own candidate get heard and seen more to the extent of rendering other candidates irrelevant.
EVERYthing in a capitalist society, hinges on money. that includes the potential of getting elected. you need to have enough financial power to be able to even get your voice heard, if you are a candidate. going from town to town with train, doesnt cut it anymore. you need to buy ads, appear in mass media, get your name and opinions heard, to be even considered a candidate. you cant just be a candidate by registering as a candidate in the elections.
and, even financial power doesnt cut it anymore. no mass media outlet will let you on, and speak in their channels, even accept and run your ads, if your views do not support theirs. even more, your interests coincide with theirs. so, basically not even financial power is enough ; you need to be friendly with established hierarchy - no, you actually need to be THEIR puppet candidate, so that you can actually make your voice heard.
and what the average citizen can do ? the only candidates they can see, are the ones, well, they can actually see and hear.
the capitalist system, and its resultant established elite hierarchy, doesnt let anybody but their own puppets to be seen.
and naturally, these share the votes.
im not even going to go into constant brainwashing and 'opinion shaping' that can be affected, by using the power of big established media conglomerates. there is a whole network, sitting on top at #1, by spewing outright lies and hatred, despite they dont legally call themselves 'news' in courts anymore. (while defending against libel).
so in an environment like this, what do you expect citizens to do...
limited government is as 'none' as no government. in a limited government, private corporations would fulfill the rendering of critical goods and services, giving the power over these critical facets of life into their hands. this is what private interests exactly want, since it is the closest situation to feudalism.
they will make the people, public spend funds for military, police, enforcement, saving them headaches of paying for them, also averting the risk of rebellions and revolutions, and still govern all aspects of life outside these with their financial dominance. actually, they already do that.
the democrats in america, arent even close to s in the word socialism. they are more capitalist than the right wingers in europe or other places of the world. your political spectrum is WAY too skewed to right, so that even the socialist there, is capitalist.
I'm a libertarian (small, weak government), not an anarchist (no government), but just stop and think: If there was no government and no congress, then there would be no COICA. And no COICA would mean no way for the Corporations from stealing our stuff. We could pirate books, songs, shows without limit.
instead, your rulers would be the corporations. with their private 'security' divisions.
what you speak of, is basically feudalism. that very environment gave rise to feudalism in early middle ages.
the freemen with the most money make the rules. yet, there are still a lot of ayn randists who would still attempt selling free market/capitalist bullshit to us :
money is power. if you allow any individual or group to gain more money than others, you practically give the power in their hands. no amount of 'equality' legislation in the political arena, can offset this economic power; the one with the gold makes the rule.
Your implication is that individuals are better at managing power than collections of individuals.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way.
it works that way. it is the idea behind the basis of democracy. the opposite is elitism, or aristocracy or oligarchy in various forms.
On one hand, you have pure democracy (which you propose), in which case, a majority of one decides the issue, regardless of the opinion of the just-barely-a-minority.
what you speak of, are minority rights and federalism issues. it doesnt have relevance to basics of democracy. even if you stray that far, and analyze those situations, even in those cases you would need to distribute power equally to citizens in the state level, so that, groups in the state level wouldnt dominate and rule over the citizens in that state. or any kind of other societal unit.
there cant be freedom and choice, if the powers are not equal.
Companies succeed by out-competing other companies on a variety of levels. Completely distributed ownership destroys the incentive that success provides.
this is a misstatement. there are numerous forms of distributed collective ownership constructs in society, from cooperatives to open source projects, and they succeed. sometimes even more than the other types.
If I own shares in every cookie company, and so does everyone else, then the idea of ownership becomes meaningless. What does my ownership get me? What good does my investment do for me or anyone else? How does that ownership and investment help those companies to succeed?
in this scheme, you are going to be wealth capped. you will not be able to have shares in innumerable companies, you wont be able to wealth in unlimited fashion. therefore, you will have to choose what you will investing in, what company you will be supporting. you may support open source companies, or you may support marine sports companies. so, at a certain cap, your power will be capped. this will accomplish numerous things :
you wont be able to amass more power than any others, therefore, you, or any group that is joined by you, wont be able to assert their will on any other segment of society, politically and financially.
you will have to spend more than the cap you are earning. this, will ensure that the profits made enters back into economy instead of sitting in swiss banks, and earning money over money, and will push investment.
you will have accomplished the financial goal that this society can provide. this, will give you sense of accomplishment. since you will be secure financially, you wont have worries of fighting over your survival. with that, you will be able to actually work on providing your unique contribution to the society, whatever it is, genuinely and passionately. you will also have the financial power to do it.
the above will spur boundless creativity and innovation civilization-wide, because it will happen for everyone.
societal system will be more democratic in every level. currently it is supposedly democratic in political level, however it is being dominated by financial/economic. with the new cap scheme, companies will have to have more shareholders, and the participation of the society in decision making process of companies will increase, therefore they will be more democratic.
it is currently appalling ; politically supposedly we are democratic, but, 5-10 people can hold and decide what happens with economic entities (corporations) that are bigger than approx 190 countries on the face of the planet. they can affect entire economies.
There are a variety of things that one could argue don't work in free markets, but what *does* work about [regulated] free markets is that new players have ample opportunity to supplant existing ones. 20 years ago, Google was in its infancy, and Yahoo was a far more influential company. Today, yahoo
I already gave Microsoft and Standard Oil as examples that are widely claimed to have been "monopolies", but weren't. Microsoft's great crime against humanity was giving away a browser for free, and Standard Oil's atrocity was cutting prices because of their more efficient refining technology. Standard Oil never had monopoly pricing power.
so basically you really dont know shit about history. the above examples wouldnt be able to be used for any discussion on fundamentals of eventual monopoly creation from free markets, because both of them are companies from post-regulation era. they are monopolies, or oligopolies DESPITE being companies of the post-regulation era in addition too. still, they cant be used as examples to anything because the conditions for argument in regard to free market is not present in post-regulation era.
So give us some examples.
why dont you do some research ? instead of using half assed knowledge from politically charged sources and advocates ?
I don't care so much about established hierarchies as long as they deliver what needs to be delivered
logically. however :
That is what the free market does. Competition for the sake of competition has a little point.
What a free market does is force established players to either adapt to new technologies and circumstances, or new entries will take over.
it breaks down at that part. competition is supposedly THE thing that should make free market a reality, and make it work with all the mechanisms you speak of. but, with immense hierarchies established, those on top can weer away anything in any way they like. this includes emerging technology. you are seeing attacks against internet in the form of anti net neutrality, or attack against all kinds of thought products in the form of acta and patents.
that is the eventual catastrophe of a 'free' market. eventually, the established hierarchies will turn everything in their favor. competition is the first to go, due to the immense power of the hierarchy. after that, various liberties and freedoms that endanger the hierarchy come - upstarts like us, the tech sector.
tech sector is not an example of anything. it has been an anomaly, at its start. it was unprecedented and it was way too free. but, as you see, even it is being tamed and subdued. and it didnt even take 15 years.
'oligopoly'. it isnt a 'far cry' from anything. it doesnt matter whether a single company controls things, or some small number of mega firms do, or a handful of companies which are proxied behind proxy corporations, corporate holdings and subsidiaries dominate everything. it ends up the same : a hierarchy, an order which is no less feudal than medieval times, end up. with even less number of controlling percentage of population sitting at top, and ensuring continuance of the order. and the masses are kept in check by the promise of 'making it', just like how they were kept in check by the promise of heaven in afterlife in middle ages.
moreover, as it was replied to you by someone else:
The above poster couldn't be more wrong, and btw this issue has nothing to do with ideology. It is fairly easy to show, using game theory and many other tools based on decision theory, that free markets invariably lead to monopolies. That is why you will not find a free market anywhere in the world. Or do you think that anti-trust legislation and all the other market regulations in place worldwide where invented just for fun? Read a good book on economic theory, it might surprise you.
you people are no different from radical religious believers. you believe something, and you dont even heed any kind of indicators to the fallacy of your belief. i suppose even what's below wont have any effect on you
thats the point. if things go more in the direction the right wing wants, government wont be able to do ANYthing regarding your land. 'private rights', 'individual liberties'. 30 senators including mccain had given objections to a bill that prevented companies from putting contract clauses in their contracts with female employees, that held them not to sue the company or the rapists, if they were raped by company employees while working overseas.
their reason was 'government should not be able to tell private citizens how to conduct their business'.
so in short, they are saying that, if a private company lets its employees rape each other, it should be able to do so, if they drop a contract clause preventing rapists and company from getting sued.
this was an actual hearing, in u.s. houses. it was an actual bill. the 30 senators objected to it were actual senators. one of them, was the presidential candidate of the last election. these are real people.
this is where ayn randists want to end up. and youre saying 'government can take it away'. yeah. not if they get their way with 'no government'.
yes. and where does that bullshit come from ? fox news ?
do you actually know ANYthing about history, to make that claim. prove your point. there is a spectacular case of monopolies occurring naturally without any government interference in history. but i doubt you will even be able to guess what it is or when it was.
i very much think that, if you allow any kind of entity/group/person to grow too big in financial power, it will eventually end up the same, regardless of regulations. best would be to limit company size at a certain ceiling, and limit shareholdership/ownership for each citizen at a maximum number. this would allow maximum participation in the democratic side of corporate process, ensure that corporations are owned by vast swaths of the populace, making population's interest directly corporations' interest and making them impossible to conflict population. also, no group/interest could get big enough to constitute governments, or center of powers which can affect or run governments/countries by themselves. it would also fix politics too, since everyone will be at a maximum power, and the power will be distributed to 250 million, noone will be able to undo others and have their way, contrary to will of others.
mercantilism is from mid 16th centuryish until mid 18th centuryish. mid 18th century until early 19th century is age of enlightenment AND industrial revolution. industrial revolution continues until early 20th century.
crown monopolies have been in the mercantilist era in between 1500-1720. 19th century, starting with 1820s and ending with 1900 was the great, free expansion era in especially united states, with all its land rush, opportunities, little rules and regulations. and it almost ended up with 4 people owning america.
nationalism has no relevance to age of mercantilism. in between 1500-1720, the concept of 'nation' wasnt even in infancy. it was the high point of kingdoms and aristocracies.
Something I've come to see and realize over the years (yeah I'm getting a little older) is that as long as the market is free, there will always be competition. Always. No matter how big, no matter how dominant a company might seem, there is always some other equally big and successful company - usually in a slightly different market and looking for new opportunities.
illusion... after the regulations that were brought at the start of century to prevent monopolies, private interests found other ways to go round the regulations.
the most widely used way is establishing a huge network of subsidiaries, holdings, proxy companies, shareholders, owners. through that, it is even possible to make a national government unable to track who owns what, if you factor in the international holdings.
even in this state, one can easily gleam that a lot of industries are dominated by a few companies at the bottom. procter&gamble for instance. you will find that innumerable 'brands' that are sold, are actually owned by or buying their cleaning chemicals from procter&gamble. so goes for a lot of other big companies.
competition is balooney. you can only compete if you are in a new field, or, if you have competing power, or if you are protected (by government or other sources). else, they either clamp you down, or buy you out, or subdue you, or place you in your proper place in food chain.
you havent read the discussion, some people came up with your arguments, and some people replied and elaborated how google and facebook fit into the picture.
how many googles came up recently ? how many facebooks ? how many apples have been built in a garage ?
ALL these corporations got out only when the field was fresh. its as simple as that. that may be search field, that may be social networking, this, or that. now, you wont be able to set up a facebook in your garage. leave aside a google. and even with that, you can only name five companies, which are totally dominating their areas as of now, and trying to dominate other fields, and even industries out of i.t.
and these are the startups by the way. not even factoring in existing behemoths that are trying to subdue all from outside.
no, its just make believe. if you force yourself to believe, you can. but, you wont be starting up a google anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
So if you don't allow any individual to gain more money than any other individual, then what do you get?
democracy.
What do you do to those pesky folks trying to make more money than others?
capitalists.
Who determines who "has enough" and who doesn't.
wealth cap. reach it, you have accomplished whatever can accomplished financially, and can be free to do whatever you want to do next.
There is a REASON that Communism attracts the kind of despotic, tyrannical leaders it does. Because it REQUIRES control of EVERYONE.
bullshit.
communism doesnt attract despotic, tyrannical leaders. it has been such in this world's history, because communist revolutions happened (naturally) in places where the populace was the most oppressed. namely, eastern europe. china. cuba. some of these had a culture of oppression and repression going back to 3000 BC. eastern europe for example, has been the source of a lot of incursions and occupations of brutal nature, going south towards middle east, balkans and anatolia. not to mention all kinds of migrations of barbaric nature towards west during roman empire and later.
in short, these WERE the places where culture was oriented towards repression. and today its no different - capitalism and democracy came, but russia is much more oppressive than soviet times. mafia just kills whomever it wants, and nothing happens.
in countries where the elite was more careful in herding the populace, and giving them bones, revolutions didnt happen. britain, namely. even in france, the elite did not manage the herds well, and this resulted in 1848 revolts. then, when capitalist mechanics were invented, all the elite translated themselves into new capitalists, as a natural result of the capital process. then there was no need for any revolutions anymore, for everyone was supposedly free, free to make money, but only could make as much money as the money they had. except for the rare inventor and entrepreneur, which never posed any threat to established order because they eventually joined them.
places which did not have a brutal repressive culture, or, had a freedom oriented culture, have been VERY successful with socialism, on the other hand. examples include scandinavian countries, which have lived, and living better than any given american, with more freedoms than someone on top of the ladder in washington dc, can dream of.
hahahahahaha.
... well, brutus maybe ...
sorry, no dice. zuck is trustworthy and reliable for me as much as
you cannot make one aspect of life totally equal, democratic, and another totally medieval, feudal, and expect things to work out. because, one will affect the other.
there will be no free trade with a feudal medieval political system, and there will be no democracy with a feudal medieval financial system.
because, any group that is able to gain more power than others, will rule that aspect of life, and then will infiltrate/dominate the other through their powerbase in that aspect.
I think it is large, bloated governments that allow corruption to thrive. If the left hand doesn't know (and can't know) what the right hand is doing, it's much easier to get what you want done. A small, open government would be more effective and less corrupt.
these are all ayn rand bullshit. which can only persuade people who are not learned in history enough, in order to know enough about feudalism, its advent, its progress and its demise in history.
i would recommend you to start researching medieval history. you will find that, almost all of its aspects except requirement of being highborn, are identical with capitalist market system.
hell, you will even find that, in medieval britain, it was possible for any serf to become a lord by acquiring enough land through marriages or buyouts. being highborn wasnt even a requirement.
and incidentally, most of the basics of the capitalist system comes from britain, and its colonies, carrying the same heritage.
A limited government doesn't have the power to keep a competitor off your turf. Any corporation that becomes so large and evil as to oppress the people will find itself with a competitor that will exploit the peoples disdain for it
"Any feudal lord that becomes so powerful and evil as to oppress the people will find himself an enemy that will exploit the people's disdain for himself"
the above sentence had not been a reality in middle ages. the stronger, ruled. it wont be a reality in corporatism at any point in future.
But we (the US) ARE a capitalist country. We've always been one...it has been what has propelled us to be a superpower.
rich land resources, huge immigration in early days, and in the 20th century, europe getting destroyed in the world war and u.s. making all the countries except eastern bloc into a dominion of its own to use as a colonial market propelled you to being a superpower.
and, that didnt even happen with normal mechanics of 'free' market and capitalism either. in 3rd world countries, approx 12+ puppet dictators were installed, all of whom which are now wanted under crimes against humanity, due to the genocides they committed. (some already convicted in jail).
in 1st and 2nd world countries, various organizations were set up, in order to make sure that those countries stayed 'true to western ideals'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
engaging in assassinations of intellectuals who were harmful to nato interests (as a proxy, u.s.), setting up scandals to discredit and neutralize u.s. opposing parties and groups, and even setting up fake terrorist groups which would claim to be following ideologies u.s. didnt want to spread, and engage in actions that would estrange society from those ideologies through bombings, assassinations, terrorist acts.
its a shitty read.
but, this was inevitable. capitalist system is basically neo feudalism - in feudal times, only the noble born was allowed to rule. now, everyone is allowed to be nobles. but, becoming a noble is harder than feudal times, and any noble has to be subservient to existing aristocracy.
it was inevitable that such situation would lead to veiled fascism, as you have seen in the above examples.
Hell, looking at TV today...the socialistic tendencies of many European countries, the debt they have incurred (I know we're fsked with regard to debt too) is having a serious downward effect on world markets.
irrelevant. and misinformed.
those socialist european countries STILL do much more than how u.s. is doing. they always did far better than how u.s. did in the last decade, even when u.s. was in apex of its american dream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
in addition, u.s. with its capitalist system, is basically owned by china now. it incurred that debt, while using its military and resources to propagate the interests of various private interests inside united states. so, your people got exploited, for your minority elite.
and, a noticeable amount of that money has been spent for destabilizing and weakening anything that was seen as harmful to the interests of that private elite, abroad. this includes those socialist countries.
however, even in this case, those socialist countries are in a position to be able to pay their debt. u.s. isnt. while many countries in europe have provided major funds to the bank bailout without even blinking, even in this state, united states had to print money like a banana republic in order to provide its bailout money, for its sunken banking system.
still dont get it.
financial power, the control over resources and services that make up life, IS the power. government's power would always pale compared to that, because financial power would always be able to effect its way into the government system eventually, and 'corrupt' your government. it is a foregone conclusion.
even in a place where corruption would be totally prevented, the financial power would be able to make its own candidate get heard and seen more to the extent of rendering other candidates irrelevant.
pray tell me ?
...
EVERYthing in a capitalist society, hinges on money. that includes the potential of getting elected. you need to have enough financial power to be able to even get your voice heard, if you are a candidate. going from town to town with train, doesnt cut it anymore. you need to buy ads, appear in mass media, get your name and opinions heard, to be even considered a candidate. you cant just be a candidate by registering as a candidate in the elections.
and, even financial power doesnt cut it anymore. no mass media outlet will let you on, and speak in their channels, even accept and run your ads, if your views do not support theirs. even more, your interests coincide with theirs. so, basically not even financial power is enough ; you need to be friendly with established hierarchy - no, you actually need to be THEIR puppet candidate, so that you can actually make your voice heard.
and what the average citizen can do ? the only candidates they can see, are the ones, well, they can actually see and hear.
the capitalist system, and its resultant established elite hierarchy, doesnt let anybody but their own puppets to be seen.
and naturally, these share the votes.
im not even going to go into constant brainwashing and 'opinion shaping' that can be affected, by using the power of big established media conglomerates. there is a whole network, sitting on top at #1, by spewing outright lies and hatred, despite they dont legally call themselves 'news' in courts anymore. (while defending against libel).
so in an environment like this, what do you expect citizens to do
limited government is as 'none' as no government. in a limited government, private corporations would fulfill the rendering of critical goods and services, giving the power over these critical facets of life into their hands. this is what private interests exactly want, since it is the closest situation to feudalism.
they will make the people, public spend funds for military, police, enforcement, saving them headaches of paying for them, also averting the risk of rebellions and revolutions, and still govern all aspects of life outside these with their financial dominance. actually, they already do that.
the democrats in america, arent even close to s in the word socialism. they are more capitalist than the right wingers in europe or other places of the world. your political spectrum is WAY too skewed to right, so that even the socialist there, is capitalist.
I'm a libertarian (small, weak government), not an anarchist (no government), but just stop and think: If there was no government and no congress, then there would be no COICA. And no COICA would mean no way for the Corporations from stealing our stuff. We could pirate books, songs, shows without limit.
instead, your rulers would be the corporations. with their private 'security' divisions.
what you speak of, is basically feudalism. that very environment gave rise to feudalism in early middle ages.
property would take the place of money. instead of cash donations, there would be property donations. get some logic.
its still at the hands of united states. this, actually could cause them to totally lose it though. it was high time.
the freemen with the most money make the rules. yet, there are still a lot of ayn randists who would still attempt selling free market/capitalist bullshit to us :
money is power. if you allow any individual or group to gain more money than others, you practically give the power in their hands. no amount of 'equality' legislation in the political arena, can offset this economic power; the one with the gold makes the rule.
this is 'strong shit' ?
Your implication is that individuals are better at managing power than collections of individuals. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way.
it works that way. it is the idea behind the basis of democracy. the opposite is elitism, or aristocracy or oligarchy in various forms.
On one hand, you have pure democracy (which you propose), in which case, a majority of one decides the issue, regardless of the opinion of the just-barely-a-minority.
what you speak of, are minority rights and federalism issues. it doesnt have relevance to basics of democracy. even if you stray that far, and analyze those situations, even in those cases you would need to distribute power equally to citizens in the state level, so that, groups in the state level wouldnt dominate and rule over the citizens in that state. or any kind of other societal unit.
there cant be freedom and choice, if the powers are not equal.
Companies succeed by out-competing other companies on a variety of levels. Completely distributed ownership destroys the incentive that success provides.
this is a misstatement. there are numerous forms of distributed collective ownership constructs in society, from cooperatives to open source projects, and they succeed. sometimes even more than the other types.
If I own shares in every cookie company, and so does everyone else, then the idea of ownership becomes meaningless. What does my ownership get me? What good does my investment do for me or anyone else? How does that ownership and investment help those companies to succeed?
in this scheme, you are going to be wealth capped. you will not be able to have shares in innumerable companies, you wont be able to wealth in unlimited fashion. therefore, you will have to choose what you will investing in, what company you will be supporting. you may support open source companies, or you may support marine sports companies. so, at a certain cap, your power will be capped. this will accomplish numerous things :
you wont be able to amass more power than any others, therefore, you, or any group that is joined by you, wont be able to assert their will on any other segment of society, politically and financially.
you will have to spend more than the cap you are earning. this, will ensure that the profits made enters back into economy instead of sitting in swiss banks, and earning money over money, and will push investment.
you will have accomplished the financial goal that this society can provide. this, will give you sense of accomplishment. since you will be secure financially, you wont have worries of fighting over your survival. with that, you will be able to actually work on providing your unique contribution to the society, whatever it is, genuinely and passionately. you will also have the financial power to do it.
the above will spur boundless creativity and innovation civilization-wide, because it will happen for everyone.
societal system will be more democratic in every level. currently it is supposedly democratic in political level, however it is being dominated by financial/economic. with the new cap scheme, companies will have to have more shareholders, and the participation of the society in decision making process of companies will increase, therefore they will be more democratic.
it is currently appalling ; politically supposedly we are democratic, but, 5-10 people can hold and decide what happens with economic entities (corporations) that are bigger than approx 190 countries on the face of the planet. they can affect entire economies.
There are a variety of things that one could argue don't work in free markets, but what *does* work about [regulated] free markets is that new players have ample opportunity to supplant existing ones. 20 years ago, Google was in its infancy, and Yahoo was a far more influential company. Today, yahoo
I already gave Microsoft and Standard Oil as examples that are widely claimed to have been "monopolies", but weren't. Microsoft's great crime against humanity was giving away a browser for free, and Standard Oil's atrocity was cutting prices because of their more efficient refining technology. Standard Oil never had monopoly pricing power.
so basically you really dont know shit about history. the above examples wouldnt be able to be used for any discussion on fundamentals of eventual monopoly creation from free markets, because both of them are companies from post-regulation era. they are monopolies, or oligopolies DESPITE being companies of the post-regulation era in addition too. still, they cant be used as examples to anything because the conditions for argument in regard to free market is not present in post-regulation era.
So give us some examples.
why dont you do some research ? instead of using half assed knowledge from politically charged sources and advocates ?
you can start by googling 'robber baron'.
I don't care so much about established hierarchies as long as they deliver what needs to be delivered
logically. however :
That is what the free market does. Competition for the sake of competition has a little point. What a free market does is force established players to either adapt to new technologies and circumstances, or new entries will take over.
it breaks down at that part. competition is supposedly THE thing that should make free market a reality, and make it work with all the mechanisms you speak of. but, with immense hierarchies established, those on top can weer away anything in any way they like. this includes emerging technology. you are seeing attacks against internet in the form of anti net neutrality, or attack against all kinds of thought products in the form of acta and patents.
that is the eventual catastrophe of a 'free' market. eventually, the established hierarchies will turn everything in their favor. competition is the first to go, due to the immense power of the hierarchy. after that, various liberties and freedoms that endanger the hierarchy come - upstarts like us, the tech sector.
tech sector is not an example of anything. it has been an anomaly, at its start. it was unprecedented and it was way too free. but, as you see, even it is being tamed and subdued. and it didnt even take 15 years.
moreover, as it was replied to you by someone else
The above poster couldn't be more wrong, and btw this issue has nothing to do with ideology. It is fairly easy to show, using game theory and many other tools based on decision theory, that free markets invariably lead to monopolies. That is why you will not find a free market anywhere in the world. Or do you think that anti-trust legislation and all the other market regulations in place worldwide where invented just for fun? Read a good book on economic theory, it might surprise you.
you people are no different from radical religious believers. you believe something, and you dont even heed any kind of indicators to the fallacy of your belief. i suppose even what's below wont have any effect on you
http://www.google.com/search?q=adam+smith+regulation&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
thats the point. if things go more in the direction the right wing wants, government wont be able to do ANYthing regarding your land. 'private rights', 'individual liberties'. 30 senators including mccain had given objections to a bill that prevented companies from putting contract clauses in their contracts with female employees, that held them not to sue the company or the rapists, if they were raped by company employees while working overseas.
their reason was 'government should not be able to tell private citizens how to conduct their business'.
so in short, they are saying that, if a private company lets its employees rape each other, it should be able to do so, if they drop a contract clause preventing rapists and company from getting sued.
this was an actual hearing, in u.s. houses. it was an actual bill. the 30 senators objected to it were actual senators. one of them, was the presidential candidate of the last election. these are real people.
this is where ayn randists want to end up. and youre saying 'government can take it away'. yeah. not if they get their way with 'no government'.
yes. and where does that bullshit come from ? fox news ?
do you actually know ANYthing about history, to make that claim. prove your point. there is a spectacular case of monopolies occurring naturally without any government interference in history. but i doubt you will even be able to guess what it is or when it was.
you actually pictured the situation really well. it is indeed what happens.
i very much think that, if you allow any kind of entity/group/person to grow too big in financial power, it will eventually end up the same, regardless of regulations. best would be to limit company size at a certain ceiling, and limit shareholdership/ownership for each citizen at a maximum number. this would allow maximum participation in the democratic side of corporate process, ensure that corporations are owned by vast swaths of the populace, making population's interest directly corporations' interest and making them impossible to conflict population. also, no group/interest could get big enough to constitute governments, or center of powers which can affect or run governments/countries by themselves. it would also fix politics too, since everyone will be at a maximum power, and the power will be distributed to 250 million, noone will be able to undo others and have their way, contrary to will of others.
mercantilism is from mid 16th centuryish until mid 18th centuryish. mid 18th century until early 19th century is age of enlightenment AND industrial revolution. industrial revolution continues until early 20th century.
crown monopolies have been in the mercantilist era in between 1500-1720. 19th century, starting with 1820s and ending with 1900 was the great, free expansion era in especially united states, with all its land rush, opportunities, little rules and regulations. and it almost ended up with 4 people owning america.
nationalism has no relevance to age of mercantilism. in between 1500-1720, the concept of 'nation' wasnt even in infancy. it was the high point of kingdoms and aristocracies.
i meant, adam smith's idea in regard to necessity of regulations.
Something I've come to see and realize over the years (yeah I'm getting a little older) is that as long as the market is free, there will always be competition. Always. No matter how big, no matter how dominant a company might seem, there is always some other equally big and successful company - usually in a slightly different market and looking for new opportunities.
illusion ... after the regulations that were brought at the start of century to prevent monopolies, private interests found other ways to go round the regulations.
the most widely used way is establishing a huge network of subsidiaries, holdings, proxy companies, shareholders, owners. through that, it is even possible to make a national government unable to track who owns what, if you factor in the international holdings.
even in this state, one can easily gleam that a lot of industries are dominated by a few companies at the bottom. procter&gamble for instance. you will find that innumerable 'brands' that are sold, are actually owned by or buying their cleaning chemicals from procter&gamble. so goes for a lot of other big companies.
competition is balooney. you can only compete if you are in a new field, or, if you have competing power, or if you are protected (by government or other sources). else, they either clamp you down, or buy you out, or subdue you, or place you in your proper place in food chain.
you havent read the discussion, some people came up with your arguments, and some people replied and elaborated how google and facebook fit into the picture.
how many googles came up recently ? how many facebooks ? how many apples have been built in a garage ?
ALL these corporations got out only when the field was fresh. its as simple as that. that may be search field, that may be social networking, this, or that. now, you wont be able to set up a facebook in your garage. leave aside a google. and even with that, you can only name five companies, which are totally dominating their areas as of now, and trying to dominate other fields, and even industries out of i.t.
and these are the startups by the way. not even factoring in existing behemoths that are trying to subdue all from outside.
no, its just make believe. if you force yourself to believe, you can. but, you wont be starting up a google anytime soon.