Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to I like alcaray's idea

Giving business a seat at the table
Robert — (archived)

One of the few things we consistently agree on is the corrupting influence of business on government, though we disagree radically about its cause.

I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell of exempting business from government control. That barn door can't feasibly be closed, because government influence over business came about to satisfy the desire of many individuals to level the playing field against the perceived power of big business. I know you disagree, but it's my view that the majority of people in a sense consider the government to be something analogous to a huge union whose power derives from aggregating the individual power of millions of people. Whether the people are right or wrong, they won't stand still for what they would perceive as "surrender" to big business.

What I'm saying is that, for completely pragmatic reasons, we recognize that business in fact has power, and in fact might have a legitimate claim to a seat at the table of representative government. If business is subject to laws and taxation, maybe it really does have a right to representation. Seems like we didn't carry the 19th century innovation of an abstract corporate entity being treated as a person under the law to its logical conclusion.

But again, at a purely practical level, I think it would be beneficial to bring the relationship between business and government out of the shadows and into the light. Much of the corruption that disgusts us comes about because business has no way of influencing government directly, and has to work indirectly through bribes and efforts to influence the voters. You can never remove corruption from human affairs completey, but I'm sure that this proposed system would reduce it dramatically by reducing the incentives.

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