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0 pointskristopolous5y ago0 comments

Of course they do! Private mercenaries, prisons, banks, repo companies, landlords, insurance providers, all kinds... of course they do. Corporations were initially an arm of the state to do state functions. They still do that today.

What corporations don't have is any obligation to cede to the public demand or be held accountable for their actions. There's no democratic control, no way they can be fired by the voter nor do they have any responsibility of transparency.

Voting systems, red light cameras, municipal water, nearly every aspect is controlled by private corporations shirking responsibility oftentimes for decades. Polluting a town's water supply and walking away pretending they didn't - there's even many well known movies about things like this with academy awards. Often the criminals get away with it having hid under the legal fiction of the corporation.

If a secretive unaccountable private corporation determining the outcome of an election and claiming the audit trail is a trade secret doesn't ruffle your libertarian feathers then there's something seriously wrong.

What you claimed is yet another silly thing I've been hearing my whole life. It's totally wrong. Any inspection would immediately reveal this

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scarface745y ago

How well has that whole accountability thing worked out for the police department and the American military? The justice system?

There's no democratic control, no way they can be fired by the voter nor do they have any responsibility of transparency.

Nor can judges with lifetime appointments.

Voting systems,

Where conservative states consistently disenfranchise minority voters by closing polling places, passing voter id laws but then make it harder for minorities to get an ID and they count gun registrations as valid Id but not college IDs...

Polluting a town's water supply and walking away pretending they didn't

See the government run water supply in Flint Michigan.

yesenadam5y ago

The US government has treated people outside the US a lot worse than it's treated its own citizens, in the last 100 years, yet anti-US government people in the US don't seem to talk about that. You don't get invaded, saturation bombed, napalmed, droned etc. Or your democracy replaced with military dictators given a load of weapons and torture training.

Still, why corporations are internally so much better by nature than governments, in that world-view, I don't see.

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kristopolousOP5y ago

Absolutely!

Humans can be real bastards and governments aren't magical solutions just as corporations aren't magically evil.

The question is about who can be held more accountable, who can be more feasibly removed from power and what kind of institution can be more promptly remedied.

We as moral actors could potentially change the laws of governance probably far easier than we could form a corporation to defeat ExxonMobil in the marketplace. Both should be easier, but that's another discussion.

Both governance and private capital are imperfect and both deserve criticism. Being a fan of either is a mistake.

scarface745y ago

The US has a long history of not being “moral actors” when it comes to the rights and freedoms of racial and religious minorities and non straight people. Having a government that caters to the majority is fine if you are in the majority.

We just saw the government stripping rights of transexuals with regards to health care. What would they do if they had more access to data? If you were a Muslim America would you trust the government in its current state to have more access to your data?

kristopolousOP5y ago

I'm sure that will be addressed far faster than the 60 years it took to hold tobacco companies accountable, only possible through government.

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scarface745y ago

How well has that whole accountability thing worked out for the police department and the American military? The justice system?

There's no democratic control, no way they can be fired by the voter nor do they have any responsibility of transparency.

Nor can judges with lifetime appointments.

Voting systems,

Polluting a town's water supply and walking away pretending they didn't

See the government run water supply in Flint Michigan.

yesenadam5y ago

Still, why corporations are internally so much better by nature than governments, in that world-view, I don't see.

2 more replies

kristopolousOP5y ago

Absolutely!

Humans can be real bastards and governments aren't magical solutions just as corporations aren't magically evil.

The question is about who can be held more accountable, who can be more feasibly removed from power and what kind of institution can be more promptly remedied.

Both governance and private capital are imperfect and both deserve criticism. Being a fan of either is a mistake.

scarface745y ago

kristopolousOP5y ago

I'm sure that will be addressed far faster than the 60 years it took to hold tobacco companies accountable, only possible through government.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse