bryanedds
09-25-2007, 03:14 PM
Another concern of many moderates is the idea that freeing market in a radical manner will allow big corporations to become abusive and have greater control over our lives.
Here is my attempt to answer these concerns :)
"Why aren't libertarians frightened of the Big Bad Corporation?"
What libertarians realize is that corporations get their unnatural powers FROM government. Without government, there is literally no such thing as the modern corporation. The corporation is simply that which gets special privileges from government that no other organization can attain - that is, the right of person hood. That any organization can have the same rights as an individual is absurd and impossible under any regime of liberty.
The truth is simple. Only in a free market system can businesses be properly reigned in by the people. Under a government regime, businesses are protected from the effects of the market. Big businesses collude with big government to protect themselves from the will of the consumer. Between the privilege of person hood, corporate bailouts, competition-crushing regulation, corporate welfare, mega-corporations are insulated from the free market by law. When you remove the government, you remove the privileges which protect corporations from the will of the people expressed in the free market. Only then can big businesses be cut down to their natural and appropriate size.
It is no coincidence that the bigger the government is, the more abusive the corporations are. In fact, it is the WORST businesses which are the ones most protected from the market (the ones in the industries where lies the most government intervention). The businesses that are fully exposed to the unhampered market are the ones that are best kept in check! Realizing this, one comes to see how absurd the assertion is that businesses will be more or even equally unruly in a truly free market!
To a libertarian, what is ridiculous is this - the suggestion that keeping the government at the current size or growing it will somehow keep people safe from big business. It will not. It does the exact opposite. Government grows, the favored corporations grow, and the right of the individual shrinks.
One of the greatest strengths of libertarianism is that it is the only feasible way to finally keep these businesses in check. Only by unleashing the forces of the market against the unwieldy behemoths can they be cut down to size. To grow government is to increase the means by which the businesses have grown abusive in the first place.
Libertarianism not only protects the individual from big government - it also protects the individual from the big corporations that spawn forth from government-granted protections from the free market.
Here is my attempt to answer these concerns :)
"Why aren't libertarians frightened of the Big Bad Corporation?"
What libertarians realize is that corporations get their unnatural powers FROM government. Without government, there is literally no such thing as the modern corporation. The corporation is simply that which gets special privileges from government that no other organization can attain - that is, the right of person hood. That any organization can have the same rights as an individual is absurd and impossible under any regime of liberty.
The truth is simple. Only in a free market system can businesses be properly reigned in by the people. Under a government regime, businesses are protected from the effects of the market. Big businesses collude with big government to protect themselves from the will of the consumer. Between the privilege of person hood, corporate bailouts, competition-crushing regulation, corporate welfare, mega-corporations are insulated from the free market by law. When you remove the government, you remove the privileges which protect corporations from the will of the people expressed in the free market. Only then can big businesses be cut down to their natural and appropriate size.
It is no coincidence that the bigger the government is, the more abusive the corporations are. In fact, it is the WORST businesses which are the ones most protected from the market (the ones in the industries where lies the most government intervention). The businesses that are fully exposed to the unhampered market are the ones that are best kept in check! Realizing this, one comes to see how absurd the assertion is that businesses will be more or even equally unruly in a truly free market!
To a libertarian, what is ridiculous is this - the suggestion that keeping the government at the current size or growing it will somehow keep people safe from big business. It will not. It does the exact opposite. Government grows, the favored corporations grow, and the right of the individual shrinks.
One of the greatest strengths of libertarianism is that it is the only feasible way to finally keep these businesses in check. Only by unleashing the forces of the market against the unwieldy behemoths can they be cut down to size. To grow government is to increase the means by which the businesses have grown abusive in the first place.
Libertarianism not only protects the individual from big government - it also protects the individual from the big corporations that spawn forth from government-granted protections from the free market.