Subj : Capitalism vs. Corporatism
To : Arelor
From : Boraxman
Date : Sun Jul 24 2022 12:09 pm
Re: Capitalism vs. Corporatism
By: Arelor to Boraxman on Sat Jul 23 2022 07:29 am
> Nation-States are not run like anything resembling a cooperative. They often
> try to tell us such so we buy into the narrative that we are all the State,
> but in practice there is a big gap of power between the people up the food
> chain and the people down the food chain, in such a way that declarations
> that underdogs have a say is illusory.
>
> ie. we tell Jack that he has a saying and that his voting counts, but this
> is a farce because:
>
> 1) Jack's only method of contributing to set policies is by voting a
> representative into power, but there are no accountability meassures to
> ensure Jack's representative will represent Jack once he gets to office.
Do we in the West in general believe that Jacks' power and say should be limited, or that he should have more freedom and ability to be heard?
> 2) The representatives Jack can choose from are pre-selected from him. The
> criteria for deciding who may run for office is decided by people who not
> necesarily represent Jack interests. This is why so many ellections turn
> into contests to vote the lesser evil in instead of voting somebody you
> actually WANT to see in office (and this should be regarded as a red flag
> that the Government's "Board" is not representative at all).
>
In Australia, anyone can run. It's not dead easy to do, but you can run as an independent. Its easier to run for the senate.
Do we in the West believe that we should have more freedom to enter politics, or less?
> 3) The Government has many powers that Jack doesn't have. Jack cannot
> delegate into a regular Cooperative rights Jack does not have (for example:
> Jack does not have the right to kill other Cooperative members or seize the
> assets of other Cooperative members). The Government has lots of powers that
> people does not have (such as killing people or taking their things). In
> practical terms, this sets the Government's "Board" in a qualitatively
> outsider realm, far away from the subjects they rule, as opposed to a
> regular Cooperative, in which the representatives of a farming group are
> farmers.
Aside from the fact I'm not advocating collectivism, this is true, but this detail comes from the vastly different function that the government has, as compared to a pet food factory. One would expect to see some details in different. Nevertheless, do we in the West believe that the government's powers to do things we can't should be expanded or curtailed to only what is necessary?
> 4) Jack cannot quit the Nation State without subjugating himself to a
> different Nation State, because Nation States won't allow anything else.
> Nation States are engineered in such a way that every person under their
> command is a slave who believes he is not a slave, and set up as to extract
> the most productivity from them (be it work or political support). Rights
> are usufructary: Jack is entitled to have hens in a pen only as long as the
> Government does not need the hens itself. In a Cooperative, the Cooperative
> may suspend Jack's benefits (or so called "negative rights", such as having
> access to a hen feed bank) but
> may not suspend Jack's right to ownership (including self-owneship).
>
That is true, but the "Nation States" won't allow anything else isn't. There are no alternatives because the Earth has been completely settled and there is nowhere not taken by nation states left. But I'm a little lost as to what you are trying to prove here? You support the current economic system, which subjets people to Communist like control at work. If you support freedom, you have to support it everywhere.
> If anything, a Nation State is a corporation with a small board of
> executives who may force anybody to buy their stocks, yet they are
> unaccountable for, and the shareholders are powerless worms in their hands.
>
My questions were rhetorical. We know that people in general want self-governance in the 'public' life. Democracy is flawed, but it is flawed because it doesn't give us enough power and freedom and is exploited, not because it DOES give us a right to govern ourselves.
We understand and support the concepts behind Democracy, even though the application isn't quite right. That was my point, that we support the idea of self-governance and trust it over dictatorial control in what is a very important sphere. It therefore doesn't follow for the same people to think that running a pet food factory is so important, they have to abrogate their rights to an authority. It just doesn't make sense at all. This argument for the current status quo is mostly supported by fear mongering, that the world would fall apart if we didn't skew property rights towards the few.
