[anamax]

> Some government workers have great authority to impose things on people, but I don't know if I'd agree that it's typical.

Every paper-pusher can make your life a living hell. Every teacher and adminstrator can punish your kid. And, I haven't even mentioned police, DAs, judges, and folks who are supposed to exercise discretion.

Janitors and the equivalent are about the only govt employees who don't have considerable power. They're a small minority of govt workers.

[andrewcooke]

the problem is not "government"; the problem is "power". it is power that is being abused. whether that power comes through the government, or through other means is largely irrelevant.

i wish americans would understand this. that they don't means that abuses of power are treated in two completely different ways here. if it's the government, it's bad. if it's anything else (which typically means a private company) then it's "you shouldn't expect anything else you naive fool".

[anamax]

> the problem is not "government"; the problem is "power". it is power that is being abused. whether that power comes through the government, or through other means is largely irrelevant.

Except that it's not, because govt power is qualitatively different. A company can't throw you in jail. All that a company can do is refuse to deal with you.

> i wish americans would understand this.

I wish that non-Americans actually understood power.

Real power is when someone can do something to me or stop other people from dealing with me. It isn't when they refuse to deal with me.

[andrewcooke]

you're still skewing things.

all that matters is power. the distinction you make above can easily be handled in terms of power: someone who can throw you in prison has more power over you than someone who cannot. restricting that to "government" adds blinders. for example, it takes the focus away from those that pay lobbyists to enact and enforce certain rules. by focussing on power and those that wield it you are freed from distortions like that.

it's no different to any other field: focussing on the abstract concept lets you handle more cases. talking about "oop" is often more useful than talking about "java"; focussing on "government" rather than "power" is the same mistake as confusing java with (all of) object oriented programming.

of course, java is (probably) the largest oo language, just as the us government is (probably) the largest source of power. but that doesn't stop the more abstract approach from being more useful.

[anamax]

> all that matters is power. the distinction you make above can easily be handled in terms of power: someone who can throw you in prison has more power over you than someone who cannot. restricting that to "government" adds blinders.

Since the power to throw me into jail is restricted to govts ....

> of course, java is (probably) the largest oo language, just as the us government is (probably) the largest source of power. but that doesn't stop the more abstract approach from being more useful.

As I've shown, govt power is qualitativively different.

Moreover, you're trying to use "they have power too" to ignore govt power.

And, interestingly enough, almost all of the examples of corporate power are actually govt acting on behalf of govt. And yet, you seem to think that more govt, that ignoring govt power, will solve those problems....

Yes, abstractions are useful. Yours is an excuse to ignore the big power problems of the world.