Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin…..

I’m not clear about which comment on Cal’s blog made you think that I thought what I wrote here it was a rebuttal; in fact, I think I was quite clear that that surprised me and bothered me. This is precisely because, from my point of view, the comment here was intended more narrowly. Of course, we then continued to discuss over there, but, at least from perspective, I was trying to address a particular piece or pieces of the puzzle.

You know, I’m really not trying to (in fact, I’m trying not to) imply that I’m seeing, much less hugging, much less arguing, the “elephant” here (as in the old story about different people touching different parts of the pachyderm and from that experience proclaiming truth). My intent–though it’s clear to me now that it was poorly executed, I guess not just here, but elsewhere–was to address a particular piece brought up in this thread, and, once that was brought up elsewhere, to try to wrestle with issues that stood out to me there.

And I think–no, know–that I quite explicitly stated there, more than once, that I was struggling with a variety of ideas, that I was thinking aloud, and that I acknowledged the incoherence of the process. Go back and read again if you don’t see that as true.

And I sort of wish those still reading this thread would do the same. Because I’m not quite clear how “my tone” could be characterized in the way that I’m thinking it’s being interpreted and presented here. You would do me a service in pointing out–there–where that happened based on what .

One thing I have learned here: I need to work on my skills at following cross-blog/cross-thread discussions. Because something really, really got lost in the translation here, by my lights, and I’m not clear why. That’s a problem, at least for me.

I didn’t initially take it as such but comments at Callimachus’ blog made me think that you and others thought it was.

“It mostly was a reaction to a piece of a comment that someone else wrote in response to Jack’s post, and, as such, my comment had a narrow focus.”

I recognize that. I’m responding to the general tone of the thread and, specifically, to the assumption in your argument (and that of the poster you were responding to) that we must choose between the lesser of two evils: big government or big business. That’s a false choice. They’re intrinsically interconnected, and all the moreso when the power balance between them is out-of-whack.

I could go on and on and on and on. Couldn’t all of you?? I’m not saying that these things are inherently bad, but they represent TREMENDOUS power, and can just as surely be abused as they can be forces for good.”

Devastating Amba? Did we read the same Whelan essay? :)

The point you made over at Callimachus’ blog in response to the post above is correct, I think, but it’s essentially the same point I read Jack making in his essay:

amba:
“reader — I think there was just no further argument to make after you got through. It was kinda the last word on the subject — unanswerable!

“And you’ve made me think — really, the most dangerous power big business has through its wealth is . . . its power to buy government! (Buy the right to be allowed to become ever more powerful by evading the responsibilities, like taxes, imposed on everyone else. Buy the right to profit from and irreparably damage the commons.)”

The thing is, they can buy not only these things but also the scarier list that reader presents.

Who is more dangerous? is simply a bad question. The question should be is concentrated power dangerous?

So in reference to this conversation overall:

What’s up with the false dichotomies? Why can’t a person both oppose unrestrained Capitalism and not be a Socialist? Or think that the New Deal was, overall, a good thing and yet also believe that entrepreneurship is also a good?

And why the reduction to individualistic moralism: Why is the most oft-repeated critique “but the rich (or Bush) are not evil”? Well, duh. Is that what Jack really said? If someone’s response to a discussion of the environment was, “but SUV drivers are not evil” or to a discussion of sexual ethics, “but sexual libertines are not evil” wouldn’t you suppose that they were not grasping the macro-level issues of the discussion?

We have not really done a “starve the beast” in regards to Government, because the interest on the national debt will soon enough crowd out even those things that are considered essentials of any Government, like defense. This is more a “default the beast,” and a Buenos Aires situation may develop. Or, quite frankly, a Soviet one. I personally believe a Soviet end is the one we can look forward to seeing, given other conditions existent at the moment.

The other anomaly is that while there is definitely a corporatist bent to the present gang in control, there is also a morality that more resembles Stalinist philosophy than anyone else’s. Kind of the worst combination of Fascism and what is commonly known as Communism.

I enjoyed your post.

It’s my opinion that business (the big bad corporation) receives little credit for their contribution while the government receives more than they should. A case in point is “outsourcing”, which has given some an opportunity to condemn business as immoral so they can demand more government regulations on business to prevent this new “outrage”.

I got my eyes opened when I helped to set up a factory in India in the nineties. New government regulations (elimination of export duties – thank you Bill Clinton) made it possible. India is desperately poor so I felt real good about bringing these people good paying jobs. And they appreciated it and worked very hard to do their level best. I taught them how to be successful in the global market. You don’t deserve your job nor does your company deserve to be in business. Quite simply you earn that right every single day.

So when I went back to the US factory, I kept getting asked by the workers there if their factory was going to be closed down and moved overseas. My only comment was that if want to keep it here, then you just have to fight for it, not by going on strike, but by earning the right to keep it. You just have to be the best. And you have to do it while handicapped by high wages, health care and government regulations. It is not a level playing field and never will be so get over it.

Don’t get me wrong, I saw things in India that made me very, very glad that we have governmental regulations such as environmental and safety. India is terribly polluted and getting worse. There are almost no safety regulations. In a steel foundry I visited all the workers were wearing flip-flops while pouring molten metal. In a small plating shop there were young children in bare feet dipping parts in harsh chemicals.

As horrible as this sounds to us modern Americans, I think it resembles our country a long time ago. It took a while until things got more civilized here. It will in India also. But over there, working in those conditions is far better than the alternative, which is to go without food or shelter. So I try not to judge or condemn.

I think I’m rambling on, but my point is that business does so much to help lift people out of poverty and modernize a society. It’s a more permanent solution than a government handout. People do have a real chance to keep improving, but it must be earned by continuing to create real value.

A good example of why government handouts can’t do this as effectively as business is Palestine. Look at what’s happening now that the free money train has dried out. Those people never learned how to create value. They just kept taking the free money because it’s so much easier than working for it. Now they’re screwed because they were not encouraged to become self sufficient as a requirement for receiving government money.

So never give a fish, but rather teach how to fish. Government gives, business teaches.

What that means is that the whole issue of WalMart leaving others (which could be a spouse’s health care, even though state provision is always what’s talked about) is a straw man. All walMart does is provide income for its workers; their health care is unaffected. Maybe the critics think it OUGHT to provide health care by reason of being an employer. But that’s not the same as saying that it causes increased burdens elsewhere. Merely that it didn’t remove a burden from elsewhere.

I have worked in several large corporations and from my experience, what makes a corporation powerful is that they know how to fill the needs of their customers. And they are staffed with intelligent, hard working and innovative people. Mostly, government is just a pain in the arse. Corporations would most certainly survive quite well and probably get much more powerful and ruthless if the government was removed from the picture.

So I read the two linked essays and comments and then at least I found something that gave me a clue to what church Mr. Whelan preaches at. Needless to say, I perceived a slant that was quite frankly disappointing and certainly not “progressive” as I define it.

From those essays and comments, I read things like people who voted for Bush are morons stupid enough to be conned by GOP propaganda, and they enabled politics that are so destructive, and that zombie traditionalism is the mode of the cultural right, and also that republicans realize how stupid and gullible the American way of thinking is and thus republicans have disdain for normal Americans and the democratic process. The one thing he did say that I totally agree with is that most normal people need to feel a sense of order and comfort. So what’s wrong with that? I find order and comfort highly desirable although not terribly exciting.

It seems to me that many people who think only one political party has all the correct answers have spent too much time up in the ozone. I believe a truly “progressive” mind is diligently seeking the best ideas wherever they can find them. And they instinctively know that the best ideas don’t all reside in a single political party or political ideology.

Anyway, even though Reagan drove me crazy back then, in retrospect, I think he was trying to bring some of the better ideals of America past to a modern world rather than take the modern world back to the past. No hard evidence but maybe this will pass for a coherent argument.

Removing government from the picture disempowers corporations — if they exist at all — and makes a much more level playing field. Under this system, a corporation has to answer to its customers, no matter what.

This is what REALLY happened to Standard Oil’s “monopoly” for instance — they got greedy and jacked up their prices, so their customers went elsewhere. Without government to help them, their presumed monopoly quickly crumbled.