[MS_Buys_Upvotes]

It's not.

Not to get too political but there are two groups: "the people" and "business". Watch every decision the current administration makes. It's helpful for "business" and hurts "the people". This is the opposite of what most people think it should be.

[emehrkay]

Honestly, is it the current administration or republicans in general? Have there been any proposals put forth by that party which directly address actual constituents' (people) needs? To me it seems like everything they want to do is wrapped up as "it's good for business, so it is good for you."

[ue_]

> Watch every decision the current administration makes.

Just the current administration, or democracies around the world? It's a fact that capital rules economy and by extension our lives. Why do you think it would be any different under Obama, Hillary, Lincoln, Thatcher, Blair, Castro, Kim Jong Un or Abe? The kind of democracy we have is bourgeois democracy - in place to protect the intersts of those owners of private property, thereby to assure functioning also protecting to some extent those interests of the people, to afford them the freedom necessary under capitalism, but no more.

It's not an issue of people v business, it's an issue of capital, which rules every country. It's not even businesses, it's capital itself.

[coldpie]

Narrowing your focus to the particular issue at stake in this thread, there's an obvious and clear difference between how the Democrat-controlled FCC behaved and how the Republican-controlled FCC is behaving. Both parties are not the same.

[r00fus]

Sure, it does make a difference. One party is ruthless and happy to sell you out. The other party is also willing to sell you out, but somewhat less effective at the ruthless thing.

Evil and Evil-lite.

[vijayr]

In the (very) short run, yes what you say makes sense. How does it make sense in the long run? "Business" can't exist without "the people", right? If I don't have money to buy shit then I can't be a good consumer, what are they going to sell to me then? Replace I with millions of people, then what?

[ue_]

You're quite leading onto an important point with this - businesses require wage labour, capitalism does on a large scale - in order to make sure that there is a large number of people who are able to buy products. Periods of increasing automation means that there are fewer people employed in the old jobs, so they have to be repurposed, or learn new skills. Too much of this is bad for property owners, so there is also a long-term incentive to keep automation growth at a certain level.

But that doesn't mean that people are thrown under the bus - that's a view without nuance. Governments recognise that business can only work when there is a certain degree of freedom to the people (a "double freedom" as Marx put it), and this is done mostly or even wholly for the purpose of ensuring this constant flow of capital. As such, the nuanced view is that while it is capital versus "the people" (wage labourers), to protect the status of capital, "the people" must be afforded certain freedoms, or things break down.