Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Compromise

re: Compromise
Tom Brosz — (archived)

I appreciate the time you're taking on this.

I have heard every euphemism for central planning and government wealth redistribution you can imagine, and "socialized capital" is just the latest.

If you sit down and follow whatever process you imagine for this "investment" idea of yours, you will see quite soon that somewhere along the line the government, probably a selected set of bureaucrats, will be picking the winners and losers. How will that be done? Who will decide who gets the cash? Where will the cash come from?

There is already widespread access to capital. I live in Silicon Valley, remember? Capital is distributed to those who look like they're going to be profitable. If this became political, what would the criteria be? Political pull? The whim of the bureaucrat?

Again, I'd like to see the details.

The idea that somehow major corporations are taking over the country is not a new one. When I was younger, it was going to be GM, IBM, and Control Data that were going to rule the earth. In "Brave New World," the dates were all "A.F." After Ford. How's Ford doing right now? Microsoft is on top of the game right now primarily because they work their asses off at it. There are no guarantees.

It's comforting for liberals to imagine that large companies only succeed by fraud and evil, because that justifies the government hammerlock over the means of production that most of them fantasize about.

History is crystal clear. The success of nations and the well-being of their citizens is largely inversely proportional to the amount of central government control over their economies.

Ken Lay. Enron. You can probably list every damn example of modern corporate evil on one page. Maybe half a page if you don't double-space. Look at the Fortune 500. What percentage of those have a history of illegal acts?

As if the current phalanx of anti-trust laws, largely arbitrary, wasn't enough control?

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