[WalterBright]

Again, you're saying government control won't have these problems.

Socialist governments produced tremendous environmental problems because even though the government consisted solely of altruistic, self-sacrificing, dedicated, incorruptible administrators, the people still needed food, clothing, and washing machines. And the government would try to provide them, rather than face mass starvation.

[dmkolobov]

No, I am not.

I am saying corporate interests are not aligned with those of the people at large, they are aligned exclusively with those of their shareholders. I do not want my country’s laws to reflect a small group’s desires to make money.

[WalterBright]

This completely overlooks the desires of the people that want the products the company provides at a reasonable price. This is not going away, regardless of how you structure things. People like to eat food and use washing machines.

The notion that profit is the root of the problem is implying that removing the profit will resolve it. History shows that this never works.

Socialism produces more environmental degradation, because it cannot produce things as efficiently as free market businesses can. So, to make up the gap, they pay little attention to the environment.

[dmkolobov]

I don’t know why you keep bringing up socialism. My point is that corporate lobbying and donations should be restricted, not that free market businesses shouldn’t exist.

There is a broad, non-linear spectrum between socialism and unrestricted corporate influence on government.

[mcguire]

Because Walter doesn't see any difference between Stalin's Soviet Union and election regulations.

[WalterBright]

You're never going to get money out of politics. Even in the Soviet Union. Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have endemic corruption in government?

Here in Seattle, the Council created "democracy vouchers" paid by the taxpayer to give to the candidate of their choice. What it really is is the incumbents using taxpayer money to fund their campaigns. If you're not an incumbent, good luck getting any of those vouchers.

[dTal]

>Do you really think the Soviet Union did not have endemic corruption in government?

Literally no one thinks that or implied it in this conversation. What a non sequitur. I don't think you're even properly reading the comments you reply to.

[inter_netuser]

Good luck why?

[WalterBright]

> unrestricted corporate influence on government

Your notion that absent corporate lobbying, government control would work out in the best interests of everybody is utterly without foundation.

Your complaint about the profit motive being the root of evil also implies that without profit, things would be better. Without profit has been repeatedly tried. It never produces better results.

My father grew up a socialist. Then he joined the military, and spent years living on military bases. There is zero profit motive on a military base. But there was no end of ridiculous problems, enormous waste, glacial bureaucracy, etc. This thoroughly disabused him of his socialist notions.

For one small example, on a new base, furniture for the base housing had to be supplied. The base commander delegated the selection of furniture to his wife (men rarely care about these things). She picked all the furniture, confident in how great her taste was and what a big favor she was doing to the ignorant masses on base.

The servicemens' wives all hated that furniture. My dad would always have a huge laugh at how much they loathed it.

P.S. When my parents got married, my mom hated all of his furniture. He had to buy all new stuff to her specifications.

[shkkmo]

Please try responding to what people are actually saying rather than inventing endless strawman arguments.

There are important functional distinctions between a government run enterprise, a government regulated enterprise and a completely unregulated enterprise.

There are different types of inefficiencies in heirarchical systems and market systems. Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games. Heirarchical systems have trouble routing around incompetence and corruption.

If you pay attention you'll notice that the systems that work best are hybrids that layer market and heirarchical systems.

While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex.

[WalterBright]

> While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex.

That has nothing to do with how things are run on a military base.

Besides, if you've got any evidence that the military worked better in a non-market system, like the USSR, please present.

> Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games.

Another word for that is "competition". Competition makes them efficient. Eliminating competition leads to gross inefficiency and incompetence, making things far worse than the duplication ever did.

[bumby]

>There is zero profit motive on a military base.

And yet, the military is one of last institutions that the American public still has faith in. It's almost as if people realize there can be many motives, beyond profit, that drive people to act in a certain way.

I'm fairly blown away on a regular basis by how otherwise smart people revert to utterly simplistic models of the world.

[dmkolobov]

And speaking from a Russian perspective, your assertion that anyone in the USSR viewed their officials as self-sacrificing and altruistic is quite frankly hilarious.

[WalterBright]

I have friends who grew up in the Soviet bloc. I once witnessed a hilarious conversation between one of them and another friend who was a committed socialist (I don't de-friend people because of their politics). My socialist friend would say "X under socialism would be better". The other would say "I lived under socialism, and here's how and why X was worse." Socialist would say "but that won't happen under socialism". The other would say "you have zero experience with this, I lived under it. You have no idea what you are talking about."

The back and forth like this would go on for a while.

[mcguire]

Clearly, there's nothing to be done.

Thoughts and prayers, ivory-billed woodpecker, thoughts and prayers.

[scythe]

It's ironic that in tarring all forms of "government" with the same brush, conservatives who lackadaisically compare the actions of multi-party democratic governments to those of single-party states minimize the importance of what was probably the most important structural difference between the Eastern Bloc and Western democracies. Eisenhower would be horrified.

[bumby]

I don't understand why this is portrayed as some sort of false dichotomy.

There can be government regulation without reverting to socialism. There can also be systems of checks and balances to both the ills of unfettered free-market economics and government power structures.

[beerandt]

Because the argument isn't for regulation, it's against lobbying and it's against having a government that's influenced by corporatism/ capitalism (because that's largely what lobbying is).

Which pretty clearly makes the alternative socialism / communism, depending on how you want to define them.

[bumby]

Ok, I was reading that the alternative to current lobbying was to regulate the practice. How are you interpreting the "against lobbying" side of the argument?

Lobbying is about the right to petition the government; I don't see the direct line to socialism/communism, which is generally more concerned with the means of production. I don't think there is "clearly" a connection but rather one used to shoehorn a divisive and emotional topic.