I'm sorry man, I have to say all this. What exactly is revolutionary about you position? Your position is as revolutionary as a Whig, only taken out of context and placed in the modern day. Because at least then, there was a power structure above the emerging business class that they could work to usurp as a first step toward social mobility, albeit, very small. Now, that class DO rule. Your revolutionary ideal is to give the people with all the power, more power.
We already live in a corporatist society. We have lived in a corporatist society for a long, long time. We DO NOT live in a socialist society. We, in Britain, do NOT live in a socialist society. You, in America, CERTAINLY do noy live in a socialist society. The rich rule. The rich permiate government; they influence policy and they influence policy in their favour. Only sometimes, it doesn't quite go their way. They have to make the odd concession due to some social campaign, or some research brought to the public consciousness by the 'liberal media' or something else. These AREN'T CONSPIRACIES. They are NO MORE conspiracies than influence of your business people for what they see as 'the better way' for them and those they represent. When it doesn't always go their way, the toys come out the pram and they demand more concessions. Freedom to do what they want.
Business is simply there to make a profit. It has no desire to better the world. This has been continually displayed throughout history, from the cotton mills in Britain in the 1700's to now, with Apple in China and Primark in India. The ONLY thing that has changed this has been regulation. Governments are NOT totally representative and they DO NOT always get it right. In fact, they get it wrong a lot. Drugs, being one and a minor one in a long list. However, they are supposed to represent us, as in humanity, and they do a better job of it than a bunch CEO. By this, I mean the interests of morality as opposed to the fowarding of a simple economic goal, or even the simple prevailing, hegemony. The one's that mainly fail in this task are those that fight for more freedom for massive corporations.
So, governments have overturned child labour in Britian, back in the 1800's. They overturned poor houses and other exploitative institutions that big business used to profit immorally. These would not have vanished in a Libertarian system, because the people, the class of people, it represented had no power. They were merely the workforce pool. It was philosophical developments, quite apart from the economic system, that pushed certain people into action which caused a ban to be enforced. Now, could that have happened by consumer pressure? Probably not. Because, to be honest, I expect the majority of the British middle classes would have prefered cheaper stocking to a fairly treated underclass. There is surely no way you could argue that this regulation of business was not right. Sometimes, within the system of greed we live in, there needs to be push. People have not stopped buying from Apple, despite their poor treatment of staff. In fact, some people almost worship them.
You see, your revolutionary thinking never thinks outside of the box that we built. You seem to treat the constucted world as the world in of itself. You believe that governments should be minimalised and muzzled as a power structure, yet you believe that ever other power structure must be allowed to flourish further. Business is pushing for ever more leeway, using the financial crisis as an excuse. Amongst other things, the rights granted to workers to be stripped bare. The ability to fire to be much easier and much more fluid. This doesn't bother me, I'm a contractor, I'm used to that shit and live very much on my own on the fringe. But others, for others, this is terrifying. This allows businesses to push their workforce to work all the hours that they, THE BUSINESS, deem necessary. For a simple, unchanging, non-overtime paying wage, you must work longer or face dismissal. Those at the top do not face that fear.
What's more, those at the top have prospered ever more since the financial crisis while the rest of us have floundered. By freeing up the market indefinitely, we are feeding this. The freedom to further exploit, to control workers by unfair rates of pay, and by setting their prices accordingly. Business groups can plan strategies to, economically, control behaviour if they so wish.
We need, currently, a government to act as a counter balance. REMEMBER, we live in a world, with people. Real people, real lives, real experiences. We are NOT disposable, regardless of whether market capitalism deems it so or not. It's this that needs to be defended, not a precious little system that was dreamt up by some farmers who like the look of someone's shiny nugget, that's gone completely out of control.
Ideally, we shouldn't have governments. Nor should we need taxes. We should have councils that run business on a democratic basis, syndicalist style, where the workforce has a say. Where all are represented and all work together toward success and a common goal. Where competition does exist, but in a far more friendly manner than it does now where you want to out do your peer simply for the braghing rights over a beer. Those in need are taken care of by their society, who are no longer chasing the goal of greed.
Currently, competition is ruthless and is cut throat. And the market will not right and the market will not reflect morality, not when no one has any money and people desperately clamber for the cheapest products and services in order to survive. Low prices are brought around by the suffering of others, and ethics are expensive in our system.
I agree on your socially Libertarian stance, but not the extreme nature of your right-wing economics. Unfortunately, the use of Libertarian here reminds me a lot of parties here in Europe. There are many parties that use the word Freedom in their name when they want nothing of the kind. Under your free market economy, Libertarianism extends to a few.
(Written on the fly, when I was supposed to be filling in a spreadsheet)
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