Shouldn't corporations be decentralised by the same reasoning? Because if you're just decentralizing government, they'll immediately fill the power vacuum.
Well, I oppose limited liability laws, corporate subsidies, and bailouts. All that might lead to decentralization of course.
However, the fundamental difference is that with a corporation, you don't HAVE to do business with them. Which, I understand, requires a government to make sure a corporation can't force you to do business with them. I understand this part of it.
I'd still like to hear your explanation for the "you can always choose another market" line you posted earlier, because I suspect it might be related to this.
As I said, you never HAVE to purchase from a given corporation. But you don't really have a choice not to pay taxes.
I guess so...
Why this obsession with property? It's the big kink in your machine, so to speak. (Private) property is by necessity always going to be a minority-run affair, because property is wealth, and wealth is power, and people are not going to redistribute their wealth voluntarily, nor with they relinquish their power or the source of their power voluntarily. This necessitates that such an institution be protected by violence or threats of violence, since the majority (and we are talking upwards of 90% here, not your proverbial and absurd 50.1%) will either want or require those things of which the minority is in possession.
How high of a majority it is isn't really relevant to me. You're assuming that one person would own everything in a minimalist state. I don't understand why that would necessarily be the case. Competition naturally drives prices down and reduces the amount of money that a single person can make. Limited liability laws and corporate subsidies also help a single person consolidate more money than they would be able to on the free market.
If I did not know better, I could only devise from the points you have given that you have no qualms about being ruled over by corporations, who can direct both the citizens and the country as they see fit to turn greater profits. But you have also stated that you have an interest in protecting civil liberties like freedom of speech, religion, and the press. What respect do you expect a profit-bent corporation to show to these freedoms, without the threat of punishment by the state for their infraction?
They wouldn't. Which is why I agree that a government of some sort must exist.
I know that you qualify this point by saying that the minimalist government is one which exists purely for the protection of those liberties. But just how powerful must a government be to protect its citizens from large corporations? Without the power to seriously punish them for infractions, a government and the constitutional rights it protects are just and idea and some words on paper. And so in order to protect the rights of citizens, agencies and a bureaucracy are required. Those things are funded by taxes. So do you see how much trouble flows from your simple proposition that men are entitled to property? You literally cut off your nose to spite your face.
Certainly not as big of one as we have today.
My distinction is that deals made with corporations, or anything else, must be voluntary. So you can agree to work for what is less than is currently the minimum wage, but a corporation could not forcibly enslave you. The latter could be stopped by government. And fairly easily, as you would never allow a corporation to enslave you, you would report it, and it would be fairly easy to deal with. Obviously crime still exists. There's nothing that can stop that, other than declaring everything (Up to murder) legal. And that would simply make evil more common.
I don't see what you're going for here. You seem to think government can solve any problem if only you make it bigger. I don't think so.
And so you can only arrive at either the position of liberals, that government is an unfortunate but necessary evil, or the position of socialists, that property, and everything that flows from it, is what stands between us and a peaceful, stateless society. It's up to you. But you can't have it all: a small government, a peaceful society, private property, and the protection of civil liberties.
I see no reason why all four cannot exist. Of course, I do take the liberal position, that government is a necessary evil, but I do not believe that very much of it is a necessary evil.
). The son is full of sh..
