Would you trust corporations to self-regulate?

Originally posted by subject x

Originally posted by NeverSleepingEyes
as governments worldwide actually are doing all the regulation corporations need, why change?

Well, it doesn't seem to be working out to well, judging from the markets and the collapsing economies of the world.
That would be a pretty good reason, I think.

now who created those collapsing economies, you think? the citizen, whose few means are being taken to pay for the party that is organized by private institutions, gratefully supported by governments who are changing legislation so the bankers could start a round of russian roulette? or those corporate puppets who live for the quarterly bonus and whose sole window on real people are statistical risk assessments?

Originally posted by subject x

Originally posted by DarthMuerte
The free market would regulate itself

Yeah, that's what Dr. Paul says, too.
Could you explain how it would do that?

Did you read the whole post or stop right there? Without large/multi-national corporations, all businesses would again be "local". If a local business starts raping their customers, their customers would desert them and either go to other companies OR start their own competing company replacing the rapacious previous company. Kind of the opposite of what the big conglomerates do now. That cannot happen now because the government makes it too hard/expensive to start some types of businesses and/or they cannot compete with the cutthroat tactics employed by the wal-marts of the world. Then you have the evil synergy developed by the large corporations buying the politicians who then promulgate even more rules stifling the growth of real competitors.

reply to post by illuminatislave


So long as people keep sending their money to bad businesses (like dumb**its), then who is the government to tell the people they are wrong to do so? If a business does wrong, it is the responsibilities of the parties involved (either the business or the client) to regulate. However, in our culture people are arrogant and ignorant, like our government, and so we prop up a "king" to rescue us from what is our own duty.

reply to post by negativenihil


If people are willing to subject themselves to such situations (as many cultures have done in the past and are doing now), then it is obviously a necessary part of a culture's "growing pains." And to not understand this is entirely a result of false civility. Another manifestation of such false civility is the blindness which people instill into children so that they do not become aware of "reality" until they are in their 20s. What a shock it is to a person for that to occur, and what a detriment to the healthy progress of our species.

reply to post by Dasher


And no, I am not particularly advocating child-labor. I am advocating that a family and/or culture should determine those values based upon their own judgment. Who is a stranger in the magical "Washington" to determine how I am to think and act? Idiocy. Idiocracy.

Unbiased access to information, facts, ideas, etc. That is the duty of a civilized governing body (locally instituted). In other words, the preservation of healthy mental/spiritual food. But what a person makes of those things, that is sacred and entirely none of the governments business so long as there is no victimization.

1) If someone tried to open a bar at an AA meeting they'd be thrown from the room.
2) Asking corporations to self regulate is like asking a criminal to plead guilty.
3) Greed is an addictive thing, By definition it is self procreating, more is never enough. Self regulation is impossible.

edit: And a parasite has to know how much blood to suck without destroying its host in the process. So the parasite DOES care for its charge in a certain way. Like a lion "loves" its prey.

Originally posted by subject x
reply to post by Cuervo

 

That kinda makes sense, but then again, a free market is a free market, with no regs from fed. or state government. Which is what he's calling for, from what I've read.

Bear with me, I'm just trying to understand Dr. Paul's position here. I agree with lot of what he says, but I can't seem to wrap my head around this one. It seems to me that the "free market", as referred to by Paul, is a corporate paradise, where they can do anything they want. I can't see that working out too well.

You pretty much understand it correctly but you are focusing on the negatives. The positives are all of the regulations that currently keep small farmers and producers from existing would be abolished. I doubt a state would make a regulation that prevented it from being self-sufficient so they wouldn't be as likely to create restrictions like those that are backed by Monsanto lobbies or by Wall Street investors.

The bad side is that some states would be that corporate paradise you are afraid of. Hopefully it would balance out and each state would attract the right people.

reply to post by subject x


If the GOP (and their corporate handlers) get their way and they deregulate everything, what is going to happen is that corporations will make this country completely uninhabitable for human life.

They will strip mine, frak and drill every inch of this great nation till there's nothing but huge brown clouds, environmental disasters, oil spills, and no wild land left.

Their solution? You sue the companies if they do you wrong. And you will either give up after years of legal battles where they have law firms on retainer, or you settle for next to nothing and they still get to do whatever they have been doing all the while the cancer rates for you and your family go through the roof.

Yea, let's just de regulate everything and just let corporations do whatever they like, corporations know best right? They after all are in it for the people and not money

Originally posted by Dasher
reply to post by negativenihil

 

If people are willing to subject themselves to such situations (as many cultures have done in the past and are doing now), then it is obviously a necessary part of a culture's "growing pains." And to not understand this is entirely a result of false civility. Another manifestation of such false civility is the blindness which people instill into children so that they do not become aware of "reality" until they are in their 20s. What a shock it is to a person for that to occur, and what a detriment to the healthy progress of our species.

i dig what you mean, i think :-)
however, i feel uncomfortable with the "If people are willing to subject themselves" concept because it assumes heaps of personal responsibility, a permanent state of awareness so to speak. being biological entities equipped with a brain that produces awareness and being doomed to interact with others for survival has its limiting effects on this capacity for permanent awakening (so to speak, sounds so mellow ).

people need education, the act of dealing with information should be positively perceived instead of being called weird (how i love this age of stupidity)

You people act like their won't be any laws........

If anyone can name one regulation that wasn't written or influenced by a corporation or banker, I'll change my mind on govt regulation.

reply to post by Dasher


I'm sorry, but your word-salad makes no sense.

We (America) have already lived through these "growing pains". We know the damage that will result from the lack of these sorts of regulations. There is no reason to set the clock back 100 years and allow children to be exploited nor our people to be poisoned in the name of corporate greed.

reply to post by HauntWok


To deflate the power behind informed consumers is aggressively ignorant. If you don't think a company should do "such and such," then enlighten others and do not support their business. They cannot offend if they cannot monetize their offenses. A regulated market both prevents consumers from having power to disarm offensive businesses, and prevents the death of business which are on their deathbed by their own lack of wisdom. Your argument is poor, poor, poor.

Originally posted by Rockdisjoint
You people act like their won't be any laws........

If anyone can name one regulation that wasn't written or influenced by a corporation or banker, I'll change my mind on govt regulation.

You nailed it right there. You can see their influence just by seeing that only mega corporations can survive the regulations. If somebody doesn't agree, I'd like to see them go out and try to start an organic farm or a local credit union.

reply to post by subject x


There is only 1 way to make 2 lines out of this! no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no i think that about sums up my thoughts on that question thanks.

reply to post by Dasher


That is total nonsense, buying something is not a vote. Especially when your choices are narrowed down to two or three companies, all of which act completely immorally. Besides that, you have no idea what these corporations are doing, even less knowledge than you have of what politicians are doing.

Government by an economic system is communism, by what ever name you want to call it.

The Internet is like a free market, there isn't much state intervention here and there are many 3rd-party regulators on the web, there are even drug companies on the Internet that are regulated and ranked by non-govt agencies.

No one complains about the Internets lack of intervention....

reply to post by negativenihil


You're entirely ignoring the concepts of which I communicated. Yes, it would be backwards for us to return to child-labor. And because we have passed that time, we I am confident most families and american micro-cultures would not allow it anyway. However, WE WOULD NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH WE DO IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR GROWING THROUGH THOSE TIMES.

You can scoff at clear communication, but both your ignorance in understanding the development of human society and your contempt for communication which taxes your brain power only serves to stress that your point is arrived at through a lack of wisdom. Please rethink your position and either defend it with a more civilized communication, or concede to a better way. Arrogance has no place in our society if we expect to lift ourselves out of this barbaric time. We may not have child-labor at this time, but our thinking, en masse, is far fewer notches above chimp than most realize.

Originally posted by Dasher
reply to post by negativenihil

 

You're entirely ignoring the concepts of which I communicated.

Wrong. You've failed to communicate any concept with your post and instead simply strung together a pile of words to look like you're passing off some sort of idea.

reply to post by poet1b


Expecting a person to make a sacrifice in order to facilitate regulation is not nonsensical. I understand that our culture has an aversion to responsible conduct, but to call it nonsensical is so childish that I am actually shocked. I do hope that you are very young and without good mentors, otherwise, there is no good excuse for such poor thinking.

Originally posted by Dasher
I am not fully sure what you are communicating in this post, but do you understand that the current system we are under which is failing, is a regulated system? And that under a non-regulated system, businesses like BofA would be gone and the harm that current government regulations are trying to hide would already have begun healing?

That, Dasher (how's Prancer and Vixen, by the way? ), is just the kind of thing I was looking for. A good example of how the market would "spank" a corporation. Thanks for that, RP's position makes a little more sense now.

I don't necessarily agree with it, though. Had BoA been allowed to fail, there would still have been nothing to prevent the "owners", after pocketing all the BoA profits, from opening another bank and starting the whole thing all over.

I certainly don't have the answers, as I see bad things happening with or without government regulation, but I can sorta see where Dr. Pul's coming from now. Maybe the answer, as some have already mentioned, lies in limiting the size of any given corp. The old "all your eggs in one basket" test shows that centralization of assets/product is a bad idea, as one disaster can seize the entire system, be it food, fuel, medicine, or whatever. Multiple smaller businesses would be more resilient to problems, more "locally aware" of the needs of their customers, and probably spread the wealth/power around, diluting the impact any one corp. could have on the world.

Anyway, thanks again for your response.